THEOLD 


Allen 
White 


THE  GIFT  OF 

MAY  TREAT  MORRISON 

IN  MEMORY  OF 
ALEXANDER   F  MORRISON 


THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK    -    BOSTON   •    CHICAGO 
ATLANTA   ■    SAN   FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON   •    BOMBAY   •    CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 


A  VIEW   OF   AMERICAN 
DEMOCRACY 


BY 


WILLIAM   ALLEN   WHITE 

H 
AUTHOR    OF    "A    CERTAIN    RICH    MAN,"     "IN    OUR    TOWN," 
"STRATAGEMS    AND    SPOILS,"  ETC. 


Ncfo  ffork 
THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

1910 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1910, 
By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.      Published  May,  1910. 


NorhjDoli  linss 

J.  S.  Cushing  Co.  —  Berwick  <fc  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


H 


-) 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Our  Democracy  in  the  Beginning       ...  1 

II.  How  our  Democracy  became  Modified       .        .  8 

(v.        III.  The  Beginnings  of  the  Change   ....  32 

CM 

IV.  Certain  Definite  Tendencies        ....  65 

V.  Progress  in  American  Cities         ....  97 

VI.  The  Leaven  in  the  National  Lump    .        .        .  131 

VII.  The  Schools  the  Mainspring  of  Democracy     .  169 

Vm.  The  Courts  the  Checks  of  Democracy      .        .  197 

IX.  A  Look  Ahead 230 


Appendix 255 


42y735 


THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

CHAPTER  I 

OUB  DEMOCKACY  IN  THE   BEGINNING 

Any  view  of  a  going  concern,  like  our  American 
democracy,  inevitably  must  be  a  partial  view,  be- 
cause it  must  be  a  fleeting  one.  The  facts  about 
our  democracy  to-day  obviously  are  not  the  facts 
of  yesterday,  nor  are  they  the  facts  of  to-morrow. 
The  democracy  in  the  United  States  which  De 
Tocqueville  saw  in  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century  is  not  the  American  democracy  rising  to 
power  in  the  twentieth  century.  Perhaps,  indeed,  we 
did  not  have  a  democracy  at  all  during  the  early 
decades  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Certainly  that 
democracy  passed  into  the  more  typical  republican 
form  of  government  during  the  middle  and  latter 
decades  of  the  century.  And  it  seems  likely  that  we 
are  about  to  revert  (or  progress,  if  you  would  choose 
that  verb)  from  the  republican  form  under  which  our 
nation  waxed  fat  and  strong  after  the  Civil  War, 


2  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

to  another  form  —  a  form  participated  in  more 
largely  than  ever  before  by  the  voter,  a  form  more 
zealous  for  the  rights,  of  the  individual,  and  a  form 
more  directly  guided  by  the  masses  —  government 
"of  the  people,  for  the  people,  by  the  people." 

We  are  a  different  nation  from  that  which  De 
Tocqueville  saw  when  he  visited  us  nearly  one 
hundred  years  ago.  We  have  a  different  government, 
though  our  Constitution  has  not  been  changed,  fun- 
damentally, from  that  of  the  government  which  he 
saw.  We  live  on  a  different  economic  basis  than 
that  which  sustained  us  in  the  twenties  and  thirties 
of  the  last  century.  And  our  social  organization 
has  been  improved  since  the  days  of  the  fathers  of 
the  Republic.  A  century  ago  our  politicians 
and  statesmen  dwelt  apart  from  the  people.  Alex- 
ander Hamilton  longed  for  a  House  of  Lords. 
Fancy  a  statesman  yearning  for  such  an  institution 
now!  The  education  of  the  masses  was  neglected. 
Schooling  was  difficult  compared  with  the  present 
facility  for  obtaining  education.  Leaders  seemed 
to  lead  in  that  day.  Now  they  trail  at  least  a  bien- 
nium  behind  the  people.  Americans  were  isolated 
and  more  or  less  queer  when  De  Tocqueville  saw  us. 
The  world  is  a  snug  little  community  now,  with  opin- 
ions about  the  inhabitants  of  Mars.     The  big  house 


OUR  DEMOCRACY  IN  THE  BEGINNING  3 

on  the  hill,  of  our  grandfathers,  to-day  is  duplicated, 
where  it  is  not  vastly  improved,  all  over  the  valley. 
We,  the  ordinary  run  of  people  in  these  latter  days, 
enjoy  comforts  that  were  denied  to  the  rich  in  Andrew 
Jackson's  day.  Hours  of  labor  are  shortened  for 
those  who  work.  The  physical  strain  of  the  workers 
also  has  been  greatly  relieved  in  the  passing  century. 
The  attitude  of  master  and  servant  has  been  revo- 
lutionized. Brotherhood  is  abroad  in  the  land. 
There  has  been  an  immense  magnifying  of  the  human 
being,  since  Hamilton's  time;  and  this  too  despite  the 
fact  that  all  the  little  home  factories  are  gone  where 
men  and  women  worked  alone,  and  in  their  places  are 
the  great  factories  where  men  work  by  the  thousands. 
But  the  worker  by  the  thousands  has  the  power  of  the 
sympathy  of  the  thousands  behind  him.  He  may  not 
be  treated  with  contumely.  In  the  old  democracy 
of  Jefferson's  dream  God  sat  on  a  golden  throne  on 
some  distant  orb,  ruling  the  universe  like  an  exalted 
Frederick  the  Great.  To-day  God  is  moving  in  the 
hearts  of  men;  the  kingdom  of  Heaven  is  within  us. 
Yet  De  Tocqueville  called  that  elder  civilization  a  de- 
mocracy. And  to-day  we  believe  that  we  are  coming 
into  another  democracy.  The  two  —  politically,  eco- 
nomically, and  socially  —  are  almost  utterly  dissim- 
ilar.     Something  has  intervened.      Something  has 


4  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

come  into  life,  not  only  in  America,  but  all  over  civili- 
zation, within  a  hundred  years,  that  has  changed  the 
aspect  of  humanity.  Something  has  given  political 
control  to  the  masses;  something  has  given  them 
shorter  hours  of  work  than  they  ever  had  before; 
more  education  than  they  ever  had  before;  more  com- 
forts than  they  ever  had  before;  more  self-respect  than 
they  ever  had  before;  more  deep-set  practical  work- 
ing-clothes —  faith  in  the  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
Brotherhood  of  man.  Perhaps  it  is  the  vast  savings 
of  the  people;  certainly  we  have  billions  now  for  our 
millions  of  one  hundred  years  ago.  Have  we  bought 
all  these  blessings  with  hard  cash?  We  are  a  thrifty 
people.  We  have  grown  capital — we  ordinary  every- 
day people  —  by  the  billions.  The  wealth  of  the 
country  is  our  savings  —  whoever  may  happen  to 
hold  the  title  for  the  moment.  Perhaps  with  our 
savings  we  have  bought  all  these  political,  social,  and 
economic  comforts  and  luxuries.  But  how  did  we 
manage  to  save?  What  has  given  the  democracy  of 
the  twentieth  century  such  an  enormous  store  of  cap- 
ital, as  evidenced  in  our  national  wealth,  compared 
with  the  old  democracy  of  the  fathers.  They  worked 
more  hours,  wore  homespun  clothes,  bought  few  books, 
had  few  amusements,  lived  in  primitive  simplicity; 
certainly  they  should  have  saved  more.    Yet  we  are 


OUR  DEMOCRACY  IN  THE  BEGINNING  5 

richer,  man  for  man,  than  they  were.  Something 
happened  during  the  half  century  after  De  Tocque- 
ville  left  us  and  before  Mr.  Bryce  came  back  and 
wrote  his  " American  Commonwealth."  It  revolu- 
tionized us.  It  was  some  great  force  —  elemental, 
dynamic. 

The  force  was  steam  —  the  thing  that  happened 
was  the  common  use  of  steam.  The  nineteenth 
century  will  be  known  as  the  century  made 
marvelous  by  the  use  of  steam.  Steam  lightened 
the  strain  on  human  muscles;  soon  the  hours  of 
labor  were  shortened.  The  workingman  got  more 
daylight  in  which  to  look  about  and  see  how  the 
world  is  put  together.  With  leisure  came  reflection, 
with  reflection  came  opinions,  with  opinions  came  re- 
volt against  the  inequalities  of  men,  and  with  that 
revolt  modern  democracy  is  coming.  That  was  the 
social  and  the  moral  side  of  the  discovery  of  the  uses 
of  steam.  It  had  its  material  and  economic  side  also. 
Steam  annihilated  distance,  fostered  understanding 
between  men,  set  them  in  good  houses,  fed  them 
nourishing  food,  made  men  of  them.  It  multiplied 
their  thrift  ten  and  a  hundred  fold,  and  while  it 
made  them  men, — democratic  men, — it  put  their 
accumulated  savings  into  the  hands  of  trustees  who 
became  the  masters  of  men.    The  use  of  steam  stored 


6  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

up  either  as  savings  or  as  profits  such  colossal  sums 
of  capital  as  mankind  never  before  had  dreamed  of. 
The  savings  and  the  profits  of  the  multitude  were 
trusted  to  the  servants  of  the  multitude  —  to  the  men 
with  ten  talents,  who  increased  the  savings  fabulously. 
These  servants  had  a  power  like  that  of  rulers.  They 
were  rulers  while  they  remained  servants.  But  they 
were  servants,  not  of  the  whole  man  whom  they 
served,  but  only  of  his  selfish  faculties.  The  capi- 
talist took  the  color  of  his  master.  He  grew  hard 
and  grasping.  Capital  became  a  synonym  for  greed ; 
the  development  was  natural.  Yet  capital  was  not 
principally  of  the  rich;  it  was  the  common  hoard, 
the  savings  and  profits  of  the  whole  people.  So  cap- 
italism —  its  virtues  and  its  vices  are  not  the  virtues 
and  vices  of  a  class  (not  of  the  rich,  for  instance),  but 
capitalism  is  a  part  of  the  public  character,  a  part  of 
the  American  character  in  its  relation  to  this  people 
and  this  government.  And  when,  in  the  chapters 
that  are  to  follow  hereinafter,  one  sees  the  struggle 
between  democracy  and  capital,  it  must  not  be  con- 
ceived to  mean  a  struggle  between  the  rich  and  the 
poor,  but  it  must  be  recognized  as  a  struggle  in  every 
man's  heart  between  the  unselfish  and  the  selfish  in- 
stincts of  his  nature  for  supremacy.  Dernocracy„  is 
struggling  for  the  rights  of  man  against  the  rights  of 


OUR  DEMOCRACY  IN  THE  BEGINNING  7 

property.  The  rich  man  often  is  democratic;  the 
poor  man,  sometimes  intensely  selfish.  It  is  not  a 
struggle  of  classes,  not  in  America;  it  is  a  contest  in 
the  heart  of  the  common  people.  We  are  trying  to 
do  justice  under  new  conditions  in  the  world  —  con- 
ditions arising  from  the  stupendous  changes  wrought 
to  humanity  by  the  use  of  steam.  We  are  trying,  as 
it  were,  to  digest  in  our  social  organism  this  new  apple 
of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil.  We  are  trying  to 
socialize  steam,  to  make  its  results  and  achievements 
a  part  of  an  equitable  existence  —  an  existence  con- 
sistent with  "good  will  among  men." 

And  this  book  will  try  to  tell,  not  in  the  language 
of  a  trained  scientist,  but  in  the  words  of  an  observer 
in  the  midst  of  the  life  that  now  is,  something  about 
the  present  status  of  society  in  America.  It  is  an 
effort  to  tell  how  the  man  whom  steam  has  educated, 
fed,  housed,  clad,  given  leisure  and  vision,  the  com- 
mon man,  rich  or  poor,  is  fighting  with  the  weapons 
of  fundamental  democracy  against  the  forces  and 
instincts  in  his  own  soul  which  make  for  greed  and 
oppression  and  misery  in  this  land  of  ours.  We  have 
here  a  combat  of  the  opposing  forces  formed  by  a  new 
social  substance:  whose  basic  elements,  democracy 
and  capital  (each  useful  in  its  own  way),  were  released 
to  the  world  in  steam. 


CHAPTER  II 

HOW   OUR   DEMOCRACY   BECAME   MODIFIED 

"I  am  glad,"  said  an  Englishman  as  he  walked 
down  the  gang  plank  of  an  ocean  liner  into  the  United 
States,  "that  I  am  now  in  a  country  where  you  can 
buy  men  only  with  money. ' '  We  Americans  clearly  do 
not  realize  our  felicity.  And  yet,  when  one  considers 
what  a  large  number  of  things  have  moved  men  to 
wrong  in  other  times  and  in  other  lands,  one  should 
count  one's  blessings  and  not  his  ills.  Of  course  the 
devil  is  not  in  chains  in  this  country.  That  fact  is 
discouraging  when  one  remembers  that  we  have  been 
organized  to  chain  him  for  something  over  a  hundred 
years.  But  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  a  shackle  on 
his  ankle  and  a  few  links  forged  —  and  that  is  some- 
thing. 

Of  old,  men  were  controlled  by  the  lure  of  women, 
by  the  fear  of  hell  fire,  by  the  envy  of  social  distinc- 
tion, and  by  greed.  In  America  at  least,  and  speaking 
broadly,  allowing  for  many  exceptions,  our  politics 
and  our  business  are  not  seriously  affected  by  the 
siren,  by  the  priest,  or  by  the  nobility.     We  have 


HOW  OUR  DEMOCRACY   BECAME  MODIFIED  9 

welded  that  much  of  a  chain  for  the  devil.  We  have 
reduced  his  activity  to  greed.  But  the  drawback  is 
this :  we  have  lost  somewhat  of  finesse,  somewhat  of 
spirituality,  by  throwing  off  considerations  of  eccle- 
siasticism  and  of  feudalism.  For  democracy  is  crass, 
and  the  very  palpableness  of  the  thing  that  moves  us 
must  in  its  nature  keep  democracy  crass  and  ugly 
and  brutal  so  long  as  we  are  guided  chiefly  by  greed. 

If  the  rich  man  votes  only  for  the  return  of  pros- 
perity, and  the  poor  man  votes  only  for  the  full  din- 
ner pail,  neither  should  by  surprised  if  the  other  tries 


to  rob  him.     For  until  the  devil  is  chained  he  cer- 


tainly will  get  the  hindermost!  If  we  vote  only  for 
material  things,  we  shall  get  only  material  things. 
The  man  who  coddles  his  stomach  generally  has  a 
weak  heart  —  likewise  the  nation.  But  with  this 
nation  of  ours  the  most  hopeful  sign  of  the  times  is 
that  we  are  beginning  to  get  a  national  sense  of  our 
ailment.  All  doctors  agree  that  it  is  the  stomach 
and  not  the  heart  or  the  head  of  this  people  that  is 
wrong.  There  are  hundreds  of  panaceas  and  sure 
cures,  but  all  of  them  aim  at  the  same  disease.  In 
the  presidential  campaign  of  1908  the  Republicans, 
the  Socialists,  the  Democrats,  and  the  Prohibitionists 
proclaimed  almost  in  unison  against  the  extension  of 
special  privileges, — which  extension  is  merely  legaliz- 


10  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

ing  greed,  and  chiefly  corporate  greed.  It  was  a 
clearly  denned  struggle  between  the  contending 
forces  in  civilization  released  by  steam:  democ- 
racy and  capital. 

Therefore  it  would  seem  that  in  a  hundred  years  of 
active  life  the  American  people  have  reduced  the  fight 
for  social,  economic,  and  political  progress  to  its 
fundamental  terms.  There  was  greed  in  ecclesiasti- 
cism,  but  it  was  tinctured  with  fear.  There  was  greed 
in  feudalism,  but  it  was  alloyed  with  the  "divinity 
that  doth  hedge  a  king"  or  a  baron  or  a  lord  or  a 
knight  or  what  not  of  social  tomfoolery.  But  the 
greed  contending  with  democracy  is  simple,  primitive, 
without  sugar  coating,  and  with  nothing  more  sub- 
stantial to  hide  it  than  mere  shallow  business  tradition. 
The  church  has  been  business;  the  state  has  been 
business;  the  nobility  has  been  business;  but  now, 
thank  heaven!  only  business  is  business.  And  the 
problem  of  democracy  in  this  world  seems  to  be  to 
make  business  honest. 

Now  all  this  might  seem  obvious  if  as  a  nation  we 
did  not  have  our  noses  in  our  work.  For  a  man  with 
his  nose  in  his  work  understands  its  details,  but  some- 
times he  is  unfamiliar  with  its  general  effect.  There- 
fore, to  know  what  we  are  really  doing  in  this  country, 
and  to  appreciate  what  reasonably  we  may  hope  to  do, 


HOW  OUR   DEMOCRACY  BECAME  MODIFIED  11 

it  is  necessary  to  back  off  a  dozen  years  or  so  and  get 
a  good  look,  from  that  perspective,  at  what  we  have 
done.  And  this  historical  view  —  if  such  a  view  may 
be  had  by  going  back  little  more  than  a  decade  — 
must  not  discourage  the  reader,  no  matter  how  un- 
pleasant the  picture  may  be.  For  it  now  has  only  an 
academic  interest. 

Twenty-five  years  ago  —  more  or  less  —  an  extra- 
constitutional  government  began  to  take  charge  of 
this  country.  It  extended  its  domain  over  the  states 
gradually  from  east  to  west.  This  superficial  gov- 
ernment did  not  cover  the  entire  country  until  the 
late  nineties.  But  from  1897  to  1903  it  was  domi- 
nant, and  probably  in  many  matters  it  was  superior  to 
the  constitutional  government.  There  was  the  con- 
stitutional government  and  the  business  government 
in  the  city,  in  the  county  —  where  county  organiza- 
tions prevailed,  —  in  the  state  and  in  the  nation. 
The  constitutional  government  generally  provided 
for  the  punishment  of  crimes  of  violence,  whether 
against  the  person  or  against  property.  The  bur- 
glar, the  petty  thief,  the  cheap  swindler,  the  mur- 
derer, the  highwayman,  the  thug,  —  if  he  did  not 
operate  at  the  polls,  —  the  barnburner,  the  rioter,  the 
forger,  the  counterfeiter,  the  vagrant,  and  the  common 
liar  found  themselves  facing  the  written  law.     But 


12  THE   OLD   ORDER  CHANGETH 

certain  crimes  of  cunning,  if  capital  invested  was  suffi- 
ciently large,  were  protected  by  the  superficial  govern- 
ment. Perhaps  to  be  entirely  safe  one  should  say 
that  the  protected  crimes  of  cunning  were  those  crimes 
aimed  not  at  private  property  so  much  as  at  public 
rights;  protection  was  not  offered  to  those  who 
swindled  individuals.  But  those  who  in  the  name  of 
the  industrial  and  commercial  progress  of  the  land 
took  what  was  not  their  own  from  the  public,  or  those 
who  assumed  to  add  to  the  national  production  and 
accumulation  of  wealth,  —  to  increase  American  cap- 
ital, in  short, — they  came  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
superficial  government  and  too  frequently  they  were 
immune  from  the  constitutional  government  De- 
mocracy seemed  to  maintain  its  government,  punish- 
ing crimes  committed  by  individuals  against  indi- 
viduals; and  capital  maintained  its  government  to 
protect  capital  in  its  crimes  against  the  public. 

Finally  the  decisions  of  the  courts  were  colored  in 

/  favor  of  those  who  enjoyed  special  privileges  until 

the  special  privileges  became  vested  rights,  and  thus 

specially  privileged  classes  captured  the  Constitution. 

Then  the  two  governments  merged. 

For  those  who  enjoyed  special  privileges  in  the  in- 
vestment of  their  capital,  —  franchises,  public  grants, 
and  the  like, — laws  were  enacted,  interpreted,  and 


HOW  OUR  DEMOCRACY  BECAME  MODIFIED         13 

administered.  But  the  public  executives  and  legisla- 
tors and  courts  were  not  consciously  or  maliciously 
venal,  —  not  in  the  least.  They  were  merely  follow- 
ing the  spirit  of  the  times.  There  was  one  jurisdic- 
tion for  private  business  and  quite  another  for  the 
public  business.  And  when  little  by  little  the  alliance 
was  established  between  business  and  politics,  — 
between  capital  and  democracy, — the  two  govern- 
ments were  cemented  in  the  customs  and  traditions 
of  the  people. 

Stories  differ  as  to  how  this  alliance  was  formed. 
There  are  those  who  believe  that  it  was  projected 
deliberately  and  with  malice  prepense  by  a  group  of 
business  men  operating  in  public  service  corporations. 
But  it  seems  reasonable  as  well  as  just  to  believe 
that  ignorance  and  prejudice  produced  demagogues 
in  the  days  following  the  Civil  War,  and  that  business 
went  into  politics  in  self-defense.  But  when  business 
got  into  politics,  it  found  that  a  dollar  invested  in  a 
campaign  fund  brought  on  the  whole  more  direct 
results  than  any  other  dollar  that  might  be  invested  — 
up  to  a  certain  maximum  of  investment.  So  money 
went  into  politics  with  all  the  precision  and  caution 
that  always  has  directed  money  in  any  of  its  activities. 

And  this  was  the  way  money  went  into  politics: 
The  party  system  had  built  a  machirie  made  for  the 


14  THE   OLD   ORDER  CHANGETH 

uses  of  corruption  in  those  days  of  the  eighties  and 
nineties.  Candidates  for  all  offices,  legislative,  ju- 
dicial, and  executive,  got  their  elections  and  appoint- 
ments from  the  party  organizations.  The  apathy 
of  voters  made  party  success  more  or  less  dependent 
upon  getting  all  the  voters  to  the  polls,  and  money 
became  necessary  to  hire  carriages  and  workers  to 
bring  voters  to  the  polls,  who  would  vote  presumably 
for  the  political  organization  that  brought  them  there. 
Also  campaign  speakers  had  to  travel  about  the 
country,  literature  had  to  be  distributed  to  convince 
the  voters  of  the  justice  of  a  party's  claims  to  the 
voter's  support. 

These  were  legitimate  uses  of  money.  For  such 
purposes  as  these  any  honest  politician  might  ask  any 
honest  business  man  for  campaign  contributions. 
But  from  the  honest  uses  of  money  in  politics  grew  the 
illegitimate  uses  of  money.  Hiring  a  man  to  work 
at  the  polls  shaded  gently  into  hiring  him  to  vote  for 
the  party  that  paid  him  for  his  work.  The  expenses 
of  campaign  speakers  gradually  grew  and  included 
pay  for  personal  influence,  and  the  fund  used  for 
printing  literature  to  convince  the  voters  became 
enlarged  to  pay  for  subsidized  newspapers,  and  to 
corrupt  the  channels  of  publicity  in  various  ways. 
Through  the  party  organization  money  got  into  poli- 


HOW  OUR  DEMOCRACY  BECAME  MODIFIED  15 

tics  in  a  systematic  and  altogether  a  comfortable 
manner.  There  was  no  need  of  individual  bribery; 
there  was  no  scandal  attached  to  the  purchase  of 
special  privileges.  The  purchase  of  a  party  organiza- 
tion in  a  city  or  a  state  or  a  nation  became  so  brazen 
that  men  thought  it  was  clean.  Did  a  brewer  desire 
his  beer  sold  in  the  dives  and  saloons  of  a  certain  city 
to  the  exclusion  of  other  brews?  Well  and  good,  — 
he  contributed  sufficient  funds  to  the  party  organiza- 
tion of  the  dominant  party  in  that  city  to  "control" 
it;  that  is  to  say,  he  made  the  best  bid.  So  when 
a  public  prosecutor  was  elected  by  that  party,  he 
harried  the  users  of  the  rival  brews  until  they  bought 
only  the  administration  brand  of  beer,  and  then  they 
were  unmolested.  Did  a  street  railway  desire  a  city 
franchise,  it  gave  money  to  the  dominant  party  in  the 
city,  or  if  there  was  any  doubt  about  the  election,  the 
franchise  seeker  contributed  money  to  both  parties  in 
the  city  where  he  desired  to  loot.  After  the  election 
had  been  won  with  the  would-be  looter's  money,  the 
granting  of  the  franchise  to  the  benevolent  looter 
became  an  administration  policy.  The  man  who  op- 
posed the  franchise  was  a  political  outcast.  Did  a 
railroad  desire  immunity  from  annoying  enforcement 
of  laws  enacted  to  satisfy  public  clamor  in  any  state, 
it  contributed  money  to  the  party  controlling  that 


16  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

state,  and  railroad  commissioners  were  appointed  at 
the  suggestion  of  the  lawyers  for  the  railroad. 

It  was  but  a  natural  step  in  the  growth  of  the  po- 
litical organism,  for  the  attorneys  of  all  the  railroads 
in  a  given  state  to  come  to  a  gentlemen's  agreement 
about  the  politics  of  the  state.  Moreover,  it  was 
merely  growth  by  accretion  that  the  attorneys  for  the 
brewers  and  the  packing  houses  and  the  insurance 
companies  and  the  text-book  publishers  united  with 
the  railroad  attorneys,  thereby  building  up  in  each 
state  a  community  of  interests.  Often  this  commu- 
nity of  interests  was  erected  around  one  man;  and 
generally  he  was  not  even  chairman  of  the  local  party 
organization.  He  was  the  man  who  controlled  the 
party  chairman;  the  party  chairman  and  the  gov- 
ernor and  the  speaker  of  the  lower  house  in  the  legis- 
lature and  the  leader  in  the  upper  house  were  merely 
parts  of  the  machine.  The  boss  put  the  parts  to- 
gether. He  was  the  god  from  the  machine.  And 
the  machine  gave  direction  to  affairs  in  the  state.1 

1  In  the  New  York  insurance  investigation  of  November  16, 
1905,  we  find  B.  B.  Odell  testifying  concerning  certain  insurance 
legislation : 

"  Q.  You  have  said  that  you  told  Mr.  Hyde  that  there  would 
be  no  such  legislation  as  suggested  by  the  Ambler  bill  ? 

"  A.  In  my  opinion. 

"Q.  How  could  you  control  that? 

"  A.  I  could  not. 


HOW  OUR  DEMOCRACY  BECAME  MODIFIED  17 

Thus  the  state  party  organization  became  the  super- 
ficial government  —  the  government  of  greedy  capi- 
tal enjoying  special  privileges,  lawful  and  unlawful. 
Public  officials,  recognizing  the  force  of  the  machine 
in  which  they  were  working,  rarely  turned  against  it. 

Now  it  is  not  pleasant  to  recall  American  political 
conditions  as  they  were  in  the  late  nineties.  Yet 
those  conditions  were  founded  so  firmly  on  local 
public  sentiment  and  represented  so  thoroughly  the 
judgment  of  the  average  man,  that  —  bad  as  they 
were  —  it  becomes  necessary  to  the  uses  of  this  dis- 
cussion to  record  them  here  briefly.  For  those  con- 
ditions furnish  a  starting  point  in  the  story  of  recent 
progress  in  this  country,  and  only  as  we  take  a  square 
look  at  the  place  where  things  were  at  their  worst, 
may  we  realize  how  much  better  they  have  grown. 

Politics  in  America  a  dozen  or  fifteen  years  ago  was 
founded  upon  the  boss  system.  At  the  bottom,  in  the 
smallest  political  unit,  was  the  precinct  boss.  Dele- 
gates to  local  party  conventions  were  elected  from 
precincts  or  wards  or  townships. 

"Q.  How  could  you  in  any  way  promise  him  immunity  from 
action  of  that  kind  on  the  part  of  the  members  of  the  legislature  ? 

"  A.  Only  from  my  knowledge  and  experience  in  the  legisla- 
ture. 

"Q.  That  was  from  your  familiarity  with  the  situation? 

"A.  Yes." 

When  money  went  into  politics  it  went  there  to  protect  property, 
o 


18  THE   OLD   ORDER  CHANGETH 

The  party  convention  in  a  county,  town,  or  city 
was  made  up  of  from  two  to  four  hundred  of  such  dele- 
gates. They  nominated  the  local  county,  township, 
ward  or  city  candidates  for  the  offices  that  composed 
the  local  government.  Generally  county  governments 
prevailed  in  rural  communities  in  the  West,  in  the 
Middle  states,  and  in  the  South.  The  precinct  boss 
at  the  bottom  of  the  system  generally  said  who  should 
go  to  the  county,  town,  or  city  convention  as  delegates. 
And  in  any  precinct  of  two  hundred  votes  or  such  a 
matter,  not  over  fifty  people  in  either  party  paid 
serious  attention  to  politics.  And  year  after  year  the 
same  men  represented  each  precinct  in  the  local 
convention.  They  were  the  men  who  obeyed  the 
dominant  precinct  boss  at  the  base  of  things.  He 
was  not  an  officer  of  the  government,  but  he  con- 
trolled delegates  to  local  conventions  which  nomi- 
nated candidates  for  all  the  offices  of  the  local  gov- 
ernment, so  he  became  an  actual  part  of  the  local 
government  of  every  community.  Half  a  dozen 
precinct  bosses  controlled  the  average  county  or 
small  city.  And  the  indomitable  man  among  them 
controlled  them. 

This  indomitable  local  boss  had  relations  with  the 
group  of  bosses  that  controlled  the  district  or  the 
great  city.     He  was  one  of  them.     He  controlled  the 


HOW  OUR  DEMOCRACY  BECAME  MODIFIED  19 

larger  group  if  he  was  strong  enough.  And  he  had 
relations  with  the  still  more  powerful  group  of  bosses 
that  controlled  the  state  conventions  and  state  legis- 
latures of  his  party.  If  he  was  one  of  the  larger  groups, 
he  was  powerful  enough  to  say  who  should  be  nomi- 
nated for  the  legislature  in  his  county,  who  should 
have  the  judicial  and  congressional  nominations  in  his 
district,  and  who  should  attend  the  state  convention 
as  delegates  to  name  the  candidates  for  state  office. 
His  nose  was  above  water.  He  had  a  status  in  the 
politics  of  his  state.  He  was  some  one.  Sometimes 
he  was  a  member  of  the  actual  organization  of  his 
party;  at  other  times  he  preferred  to  name  those  who 
should  be  members.  But  always  he  controlled;  and 
the  fifty  men  in  either  party  in  each  precinct  who  paid 
intelligent  attention  to  politics,  together  with  the 
fifty  men  in  each  of  a  score  of  other  precincts  in  the 
town  or  city,  knew  this  high-grade  boss,  went  to  him 
for  favors,  considered  him  as  the  vicegerent  between 
them  and  the  big  boss  who  controlled  the  group  of 
bosses  in  the  inner  temple  that  controlled  the  state. 
The  extra-constitutional  place  of  the  boss  in  gov- 
ernment was  as  the  extra-constitutional  guardian  of 
business.  If  a  telephone  company  desired  to  put  its 
poles  in  the  street,  and  the  city  council  objected, 
straightway  went  the  owner  of  the  telephone  stock  to 


20  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

the  boss.  He  straightened  matters  out.  If  a  street 
car  company  was  having  trouble  with  the  city  street 
department,  the  manager  of  the  street  railway  went  to 
the  boss,  and  the  street  department  became  reason- 
able. If  the  water  company  was  harassed  by  public 
litigation,  the  boss  arranged  a  friendly  suit  to  settle 
matters.  Always  business  was  considered.  And  in 
some  exceptional  cases,  vice  was  considered  business. 
That  was  because  vice  paid  rent,  and  property  in- 
terests could  not  be  disturbed.  The  boss,  little  or  big, 
had  the  greatest  respect  for  business  little  or  big.  And 
this  respect  came  to  him  not  as  a  peculiar  revelation, — 
and  perhaps  not  chiefly  because  business  paid  money 
to  politics,  —  but  because  he  realized  that  all  of  the 
people  about  him  felt  as  he  felt.  He  merely  reflected 
his  environment.  Otherwise  more  than  fifty  people 
would  consider  the  little  precinct  boss  obnoxious, 
and  he  would  lose  control,  and  a  different  group  would 
conduct  the  public  business  of  the  precinct.  So  the 
secondary  boss  —  the  town  or  county  boss  —  saw 
that  local  business  was  not  hampered ;  and  when  the 
railroad  company  in  the  state  desired  to  do  as  it 
pleased,  the  boss  of  the  secondary  bosses  protected 
the  railroad.  And  the  people  protected  the  bosses, 
and  business  big  and  little  paid  money  into  the  party 
committees;  and  as  the  bosses  controlled  the  com- 


HOW  OUR  DEMOCRACY  BECAME  MODIFIED         21 

mittees  the  sale  of  special  privilege  was  simple,  legal, 
and  unquestioned.  Money  in  politics  was  there  for 
the  purpose  of  protecting  the  rights  of  property 
under  the  law,  as  against  the  rights  of  men.  So 
prosperity  dwelt  among  the  people.  The  greed  of 
capital  was  rampant,  the  force  of  democracy  was 
dormant;  "and  the  fool  said  in  his  heart  there  is  no 
God." 

But  the  folly  grew  national.  Railroads,  being  the 
most  important  public  service  corporations  in  any 
state,  had  the  closest  relations  with  the  state  bosses 
who  controlled  members  of  the  legislature,  so  the  legal 
departments  of  the  railroads  named  United  States 
senators.  In  those  days  in  many  of  the  states  a  can- 
didate for  United  States  senator  usually  went  to  the 
law  departments  of  the  railroads  in  his  state,  and  made 
his  peace.  Otherwise  he  was  defeated.  Now,  man  is 
a  grateful  brute,  and  when  federal  judges  were  to  be 
named  the  law  departments  of  the  railroads  generally 
had  a  judicial  candidate  in  view.  And  the  senator 
whose  business  it  is  to  nominate  federal  judges  for  the 
President  of  the  United  States  to  appoint,  subject 
to  the  Senate's  confirmation,  generally  chose  the  man 
who  was  satisfactory  to  the  powers  in  his  state  that 
made  him  senator.  And  as  there  are  two  sides  to 
every  lawsuit,  whenever  the  interests  of  the  public 


22  THE  OLD   ORDER  CHANGETH 

and  the  interests  of  the  railroad  clashed  in  court,  it 
was  as  easy  to  see  the  railroad's  side  as  it  was  to  see 
the  other  side,  so  the  mass  of  federal  decisions  for 
years  favored  the  railroads.  And  thus  the  superficial 
government,  in  a  most  natural  way,  captured  the 
Constitution. 

(In  parentheses  here  it  seems  necessary  to  inquire 
if  this  capture  of  the  Constitution  by  our  only  aris- 
tocracy —  that  of  capital  —  was  not  in  truth  merely 
a  recapture  of  what  was  intended  in  the  beginning  by 
the  fathers  to  belong  to  the  minority.1  The  checks 
and  balances  put  in  that  Constitution  to  guard  against 
the  rule  of  the  majority  protected  slavery  for  fifty 
years,  and  perhaps  they  bound  the  nation  to  the 
rule  of  the  privileged  classes  in  the  nineties.  Per- 
haps these  same  checks  and  balances  were  put  into 
the  Constitution  deliberately  —  the  judiciary  which 
vetoes  statutes  and  remakes  laws,  the  rigidity-of  the 
fundamental  law  to  amendment,  the  remoteness  of 
the  senators  from  popular  election  and  control. 

Certainly  these  checks  and  balances  are  charing  us 
now  in  our  struggle  to  express  the  widening  moral 
intelligence  of  a  democracy  in  terms  of  government. 
And  later  it  will  be  necessary  to  return  to  this  conjec- 

1  See  "The  Spirit  of  American  Government,"  by  Professor  J.  A. 
Smith.    Macmillan. 


HOW  OUR  DEMOCRACY  BECAME  MODIFIED     23 

ture  and  examine  it  in  greater  detail.  But  the  query 
in  parentheses  should  at  least  be  set  down  here  for 
what  it  is  worth.) 

The  courts  were  not  corrupt.  They  were  merely 
human.  The  people  desired  business  protected.  The 
color  of  the  times  crocked  and  the  judges  got  it  on 
their  spectacles.  They  were  not  to  blame.  They 
merely  saw  as  we  all  saw  in  those  times.  For  politics 
was _ no  worse  than  business;  and  business  was  no 
better  than  the  people  who  did  the  trading.  And 
while  the  country  was  honest,  it  had  been  through  a 
serious,  biting,  world-wide  panic  —  the  great  panic  of 
1893.  So  prosperity  seemed  the  chief  end  of  man. 
The  prosperity  ideal  occupied  the  mind  of  a  nation. 
Every  man  was  willing  to  yield  just  a  little  bit  for  the 
larger  good  of  a  prosperous  nation.  And  all  this 
yielding  made  a  mighty  slant  in  the  line  of  probity 
when  each  man,  among  seventy  millions  of  people, 
bent  ever  so  slightly  to  it.  And  that  is  why  those  at 
the  top,  as  we  looked  up  and  saw  them  fall,  seemed  so 
much  more  out  of  plumb  than  we  were  at  the  bottom. 
But  in  fact  they  were  at  the  same  angle  with  relation 
to  exact  honesty  that  we  all  were.  Big  bosses  and 
little  bosses,  big  business  men  and  little  business  men, 
we  were  all  tarred  by  the  same  stick.  It  was  a  case  of 
stretching  the  general  welfare  clause  of  the  federal 


24  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

Constitution  to  a  bad  end,  which  at  the  time  seemed 
worthy. 

Now,  here  is  what  may  be  called  a  secondary  stage 
of  the  disease  that  was  creeping  upon  the  people. 
From  1884  to  1894  there  were  clean  cities  and  clean 
states;  on  the  whole  there  was  a  clean  federal  govern- 
ment, and  certainly  the  great  mass  of  business  trans- 
actions were  clean.  Evils  were  sporadic,  local,  and 
not  of  first  importance.  Then  came  Mark  Hanna, 
the  maker  of  a  President.  Under  Hanna  the  king's 
evil  of  business  in  politics  became  chronic  in  the 
politics  of  the  nation.  He  organized  the  state  bosses 
and  thereby  organized  the  public  service  business  of 
the  country  and  the  public  service  politics  of  the  coun- 
try; he  brought  capital  and  democracy  together, 
and  became  the  dictator  of  the  superficial  government 
of  the  United  States.  But  for  the  strength  of  Mc- 
Kinley,  Hanna  would  have  become  an  autocrat.  In 
him  were  united  the  greedy  forces  of  business  and  the 
greedy  forces  of  politics.  For  putting  America 
thoroughly  upon  a  business  basis,  the  country  owes 
to  Hanna  whatever  gratitude  is  due  a  man  who  brings 
out  the  rash,  makes  the  impurities  plain,  and  aids 
diagnosis. 

Those  were  the  good  old  times  of  business  cheer  in 
the  reign  of  Hanna.     The  knighthood  of  commercial 


HOW  OUR  DEMOCRACY  BECAME  MODIFIED     25 

license  was  in  flower  then.  Hanna  gathered  tribute 
from  certain  great  business  concerns  desiring  protec- 
tion and  privilege  in  the  government,  and  sent  the 
money  from  the  national  central  committee  of  his 
party  to  the  various  state  central  committees  of  his 
party,  and  they,  in  turn,  sent  it  to  the  county  com- 
mittees and  district  committees  and  city  committees 
of  his  party.  Incidentally  the  local  committees  kept 
on  levying  upon  such  persons  and  corporations  at 
home  as  seemed  to  be  fair  prey.  But  local  levies  and 
assessments  were  insignificant.  The  fountain  of  all 
public  corruption  came  from  above.  The  national 
committees  of  both  great  parties  organized  the  sale 
of  commercial  indulgences  into  a  fine  art.  One  was 
as  bad  as  the  other,  save  that  the  Republicans  offered 
much  the  better  market. 

So  certain  insurance  trustees  used  the  money  of 
their  trusts  for  personal  gain;  certain  railroad  offi- 
cials shared  in  the  profits  of  favored  concerns;  re- 
bates were  granted  to  shippers  and  special  rates  to 
localities ;  import  tariffs  were  made  to  build  up  private 
business;  the  stocks  and  bonds  of  railroads  and  other 
public  service  corporations  were  increased  illegiti- 
mately, and  the  people  were  taxed  to  pay  dividends 
on  fictitious  capitalization  and  interest  on  fraudulent 
debts.    Corporations  were  formed  under  the  protec- 


26  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

tion  of  the  state,  and  the  sole  business  of  these  corpo- 
rations was  to  levy  tribute  from  the  people  of  the 
state  that  protected  them;  morals  in  high  finance 
became  archaic  in  certain  altitudes,  and  the  success 
of  success  in  a  few  restricted  areas  of  business  became 
its  moral  and  its  legal  justification. 

It  should  not  be  necessary,  yet  it  is  only  just,  to  say 
that  the  area  of  dishonesty  in  business  and  even  in 
politics  was  not  wide  —  though  it  was  important. 
The  great  bulk  of  business  was  honestly  conducted, 
and  the  vast  majority  of  men  in  politics  were  above 
reproach.  And  even  those  who  did  wrong  for  the 
most  part  did  it  unwittingly.  The  sin  of  Hanna  was 
not  a  specific  intentional  debasement  of  our  politics 
and  corruption  of  our  business.  He  did  what  he 
did  by  his  example,  by  his  influence,  by  his  point  of 
view.  With  him,  in  all  sincerity  and  in  all  candor, 
business  was  the  most  important  consideration,  and 
prosperity  for  the  nation  was  the  one  end  and  aim  in 
his  soul.  He  saw  that  prosperity  threatened  in  the 
campaign  of  1896  by  the  free  silver  craze.  He  fought 
that  craze  with  entire  propriety ;  he  fought  for  busi- 
ness stability  with  the  utmost  sincerity  and  with  all 
good  will;  he  won  that  fight,  and  it  was  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world  that  he  should  consider 
business  stability  an  end  rather  than  a  means  of 


HOW  OUR  DEMOCRACY  BECAME  MODIFIED     27 

national  happiness.  He  was  our  most  picturesque 
national  leader  in  those  days.  McKinley  was  never 
dramatized  as  the  hero  of  the  play.  He  was  what 
dramatists  might  call  the  "walking  gentleman"  — 
strong,  of  course ;  honest,  certainly,  but  not  the  hero  of 
the  times.  Hanna  was  the  man  in  the  public  eye.  He 
was  the  man  who  bade  men  come  and  go  at  his  beck 
and  call.  He  was  the  boss  of  the  bosses,  and,  as  the 
ruler  of  the  superficial  government,  Hanna  guarded 
business;  McKinley  as  the  head  of  the  constitutional 
government  preserved  the  traditional  Constitution. 
One  was  the  ruler  of,  by,  and  for  capital;  the  other 
represented  democracy.  The  egoistic  forces  of  steam 
were  throbbing  vigorously  through  the  nation,  but 
the  altruistic  atoms  were  not  losing  force.  They 
were   gathering  strength. 

In  those  days  as  United  States  senators  for  the 
most  part  truckled  to  Hanna,  and  as  the  United  States 
senators  had  the  real  choice  of  federal  officials,  es- 
pecially of  federal  judges  and  officers  of  the  federal 
courts,  the  United  States  Senate  became  the  organ,  — 
not  of  the  traditional  constitutional  government,  but 
of  the  real  government,  the  merged  government  of 
money  and  men.  And  courts  —  judges,  marshals, 
prosecutors,  and  clerks  of  the  courts  and  various  arms 
of  the  law — unconsciously  took  the  color  of  Hanna's 


28  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

cast  of  thought.  They  gave  allegiance  to  the  court 
of  Hanna  and  prosperity,  rather  than  to  McKinley 
and  the  people.  So  district  attorneys  in  the  days  of 
Hanna  were  not  bringing  stock  manipulators  to  the 
bar  of  justice;  judges  were  not  instructing  grand 
juries  to  probe  into  crooked  railroad  management; 
United  States  marshals  were  not  laying  information 
before  the  courts  of  the  crimes  of  the  trusts.  For  to 
do  those  things  would  arrest  prosperity.  And  pros- 
perity was  the  god  of  the  superficial  government  of 
the  times.  Business  was  above  the  written  law  of 
those  days. 

And  no  one  was  to  blame  more  than  the  people 
themselves.  They  got  exactly  the  kind  of  a  govern- 
ment they  desired.  The  flexibility  of  our  Constitu- 
tion was  never  more  admirably  presented  to  the  world 
than  it  was  in  the  days  of  Hanna.  Public  sentiment 
governed,  and  the  great  mass  of  the  American  people 
sincerely  upheld  the  government  of  Hanna  without 
questioning  its  divine  right  to  administer  the  affairs 
of  this  country.  For  if  the  Democratic  party  had 
won  in  the  election  of  1900,  it  would  have  been  ex- 
pected to  follow  in  Hanna's  footsteps,  to  maintain 
prosperity  at  any  cost,  and  to  protect  business.  For 
we  were  a  money-mad  nation.  And  when  stocks 
and  reputations  began  to  shrink  in  1903,  when  great 


HOW  OUR  DEMOCRACY  BECAME  MODIFIED         29 

concerns  began  to  totter  and  their  heads  to  die  of 
shame,  as  they  met  a  broadened  public  conscience,  it 
is  miserably  sad  that  we  should  all  not  have  suffered 
with  those  in  high  places,  for  we  were  as  much  to  blame 
as  they  were.  They  merely  epitomized  success  as  we 
considered  it.  They  were  our  models,  and  our  su- 
perior virtue  was  an  afterthought  —  a  result  perhaps 
of  our  failure  to  attain  their  heights,  or  at  least  to 
meet  their  temptations.  They  suffered,  we  jeered, 
and  God  judged. 

But  now  conditions  are  changing.  Even  when 
the  knighthood  of  business  was  in  flower  there  was 
the  worm  in  the  bud.  There  was  the  Spanish  War. 
The  spirit  of  sacrifice  overcame  the  spirit  of  commer- 
cialism. Hanna  lost  control;  the  country  declared 
war,  and  after  waiting  to  prepare  for  it  as  best  he  could 
McKinley  proclaimed  it.  The  retention  of  the 
Philippines,  which  followed  war,  offended  some  of  the 
quicker  and  more  enlightened  consciences  of  the 
people;  but  the  crowd-conscience  of  the  nation  saw 
with  a  deep  subconscious  wisdom  of  national  genius 
that  if  we  could  learn  to  sacrifice  our  own  interest  for 
those  of  a  weaker  people,  we  would  learn  the  lesson 
needed  to  solve  the  great  problem  of  democracy  — 
to  check  our  national  greed  and  to  make  business 
honest.    For  business  may  not  be  madejhonest  by 


30  THE   OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

vicarious  sacrifice,  but  only  as  each  man  is  willing  to 
sacrifice  himself.  The  problem  of  democracy  is  at 
base  the  problem  of  individual  self-sacrifice  coming 
from  individual  good  will.  We  cannot  hope  to  social- 
ize the  forces  of  steam  in  our  civilization  until  we 
control  and  socialize  ourselves. 

And  now  for  ten  years  there  has  been  a  distinct 
movement  among  the  American  people,  —  feeble  and 
imperceptible  against  the  current  during  the  first  few 
years  of  its  beginning,  —  a  movement  which  indicates 
that  in  the  soul  of  the  people  there  is  a  conviction  of 
their  past  unrighteousness.  During  the  recent  years 
last  past  that  movement  has  been  unmistakable. 
It  is  now  one  of  the  big  self-evident  things  in  our 
national  life.  It  is  called  variously :  Reform,  the  Moral 
Awakening,  the  New  Idea,  the  Square  Deal,  the  Up- 
lift, Insurgency,  and  by  other  local  cognomens;  but 
it  is  one  current  in  the  thought  of  the  people.  And 
the  most  hopeful  sign  of  the  times  lies  in  the  fact  that 
the  current  is  almost  world-wide.  The  same  striving 
to  lift  men  to  higher  things,  to  fuller  enjoyment  of  the 
fruits  of  our  civilization,  to  a  wider  participation  in 
the  blessings  of  modern  society  —  in  short,  to  "  a  more 
abundant  life"  —  the  same  striving  is  felt  through 
Europe  and  among  the  islands  of  the  sea  that  is 
tightening  the  muscles  of  our  social  and  commercial 


HOW  OUR  DEMOCRACY  BECAME  MODIFIED         31 

and  political  body.  And  it  may  be  worth  while  to 
look  about  us  and  note  the  changes  that  are  coming 
to  us  in  the  days  when  they  are  in  the  making.     For 

"  The  old  order  changeth,  yielding  place  to  new; 
And  God  fulfils  himself  in  many  ways, 
Lest  one  good  custom  should  corrupt  the  world." 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   BEGINNINGS  OF  THE   CHANGE 

There  seems  to  be  a  persistent  instinct  in  man  to 
grow  spiritually.  The  missing  links  between  the 
protista  and  the  elephant  do  not  disprove  that  a  chain 
joined  them  once;  but  there  are  so  many  missing  links 
—  links  which  are  not  now  growing  across  the  gaps 
and  which  in  the  memory  of  man  never  have  grown — 
that  the  assumption  of  the  chain's  existence  is  only  as 
strong  as  the  evidently  broken  chain  that  lies  along 
the  field  of  human  knowledge  wherein  science  is  bur- 
rowing in  geology,  biology,  embryology,  and  Heaven 
knows  what  other  ologies  and  isms.  But  we  do  know 
that  after  the  chain  has  reached  man  it  is  an  unbroken 
chain.  We  do  know  that  men  grow.  The  chain  be- 
tween the  bushman  and  the  President  of  Harvard 
University  we  can  find,  and  we  may  see  all  of  its  links. 
What  is  more,  we  can  feel  the  pull  of  it  in  a  score  of 
human  institutions. 

It  is  demonstrable  that  the  growth  of  man  is  gov- 
erned by  two  strong  tendencies  —  that  to  help  himself, 
and  that  to  help  others;    we  call  these  tendencies 

32 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CHANGE  33 

selfishness  and  altruism,  self-preservation  and  group- 
preservation.  And  we  know  that  the  growth  of  a 
people  is  measured  by  the  scope  of  the  group  which 
the  average  man  in  it  is  disposed  to  consider  as  part 
of  his  individual  concern.  As  inventions  have 
lightened  the  burdens  of  men,  the  sympathies  of  men 
have  widened.  The  savage  discovered  the  uses  of 
fire  and  acquired  a  family.  He  invented  a  wheel 
and  organized  a  clan.  Yet  he  was  little  better  than 
a  savage.  When  he  had  fires  and  wheels  and  levers 
he  had  faith  enough  in  his  fellows  to  get  along  with 
them  in  a  tribe.  He  was  well  along  on  the  highway 
to  progress.  Writing  spread  human  sympathy  from 
the  tribe  to  the  state,  and  man  began  to  be  civilized. 
Steam  widened  the  scope  of  human  brotherhood  from 
the  state  to  the  confederation  of  states  and  gave  us 
civilization  of  the  modern  type.  Of  course  this 
national  feeling  will  extend  itself.  But  now  only  the 
picked  members  of  any  nation  transcend  its  bound- 
aries in  their  love  of  kind  and  extend  it  to  humanity 
without  regard  to  race  or  color  or  nation  or  state  or 
tribe  or  clan  or  family.  Yet  until  life  comes  to  that, 
fundamental  democracy  in  this  world  will  not  have 
reached  its  growth. 

We  like  to  think  in  America  that  we  are  a  demo- 
cratic people.    We  point  to  our  Declaration  of  Inde- 


34  THE   OLD   ORDER  CHANGETH 

pendence  as  a  great  democratic  document,  as_  it  is; 
yet  our  weakness  as  a  nation  is  that  we  have  allowed 
the  Declaration  to  remain  a  mere  declaration,  while  we 
have  operated  our  nation  under  a  constitution  which 
puts  checks  upon  democracy  at  every  turn.  Democ- 
racy has  gone  this  far:  that  the  average  citizen  is 
willing  to  admit  that  he  is  as  good  as  any  one  else, 
unless  the  other  man  be  exceedingly  rich.  But  the 
average  man  is  not  instinctively  willing  to  admit  that 
every  one  else  is  entitled  to  every  opportunity  before 
the  law  that  he  has.  So  our  democracy  is  not  full- 
grown.  But  it  is  growing.  The  instinct  for  growth 
seems  to  abide  with  this  nation.  In  the  battle  be- 
tween the  Declaration  of  Independence  on  the  one 
hand  which  declares  that  we  are  all  equal  (and  ob- 
viously means  that  all  men  have  a  right  to  display 
their  inequalities),  and  on  the  other  hand  the  Con- 
stitution which  annuls  the  Declaration  by  its  checks 
on  the  majority,  there  is  a  strong  movement  among 
the  people  toward  the  Declaration  and  away  from  the 
Constitution.  It__is  unconscious,  of  course.  The 
Constitution  still  remains  a  political  god  of  great 
power,  and  the  checks  and  balances  still  are  regarded 
as  divinely  appointed.  But  nevertheless  Americans 
are  drifting  toward  democracy  and  the  Declaration, 
and  away  from  the  financial  oligarchy  protected  by 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CHANGE     35 

the  Constitution.  Steam,  that  made  our  nation  pos- 
sible, is  slowly  adjusting  itself  to  our  life  —  gradually 
becoming  socially  digested.  And  it  is  worth  while 
to  note  how  far  the  drift  toward  democracy  has  carried 
us  in  the  last  quarter  of  a  century. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  of  any  current  just  where  it 
begins  to  turn.  This  is  especially  true  of  a  current 
in  human  affairs.  Beginnings  are  so  small,  and 
growth  is  so  slow,  that  it  is  empirical  to  declare  that  in 
the  early  nineties  in  America  the  tendency  to  democ- 
racy began  which  is  now  so  obvious  in  our  politics. 
But  it  is  likely  that  one  of  the  early  manifestations 
s^\  of  democratic  growth  in  America  began  with  the 
adoption  of  the  secret  ballot.  The  secret  ballot  is 
one  of  the  first  shackles  that  democracy  put  upon 
capital  by  abolishing  direct  bribery  as  a  factor  in 
American  politics.  The  bribery  which  remains,  even 
in  our  great  cities,  and  in  our  rotten  boroughs  on  the 
Atlantic  seaboard,  is  negligible  in  the  total  vote  of 
the  nation.  And  similarly  the  direct  bribery  of  public 
servants  is  a  negligible  force  for  unrighteousness. 
The  people  and  their  servants  made  a  mighty  gain 
over  money  in  politics  and  for  democracy  when  they 
established  the  secret  ballot,  because  money  invested 
in  politics  is  invested  to  protect  the  rights  of  prop- 
erty against  the  encroachments  of  the  rights  of  men. 


36  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

And,  therefore,  as  money  is  forced  out  of  politics  the 
rights  of  property  grow  narrower  and  the  rights  of 
men  grow  wider.  Now  money  —  which  is  the  syno- 
nym for  aristocracy  in  America  —  is  essentially  thrifty. 
It  will  take  few  chances;  and  if  it  does  not  know  posi- 
tively that  the  vote  it  buys  is  delivered,  money  will 
not  invest.  And  on  the  other  side  of  the  bargain,  the 
voter  who  is  not  tempted  to  do  the  dishonest  thing 
begins  to  see  the  honest  thing.  So  righteousness  be- 
gan to  get  a  little  elbow  room. 

The  secret  ballot,  which  came  to  Americans  with- 
out the  influence  of  any  great  leader,  which  was 
adopted  in  state  after  state  without  a  political  revo- 
lution, was  the  first  unmistakable  evidence  that  we 
see  upon  the  tide,  in  looking  back,  to  show  where  the 
turn  in  the  current  actually  began.  But  for  several 
years  after  the  change  the  current  became  an  under- 
current. Persons  desiring  to  control  politics  in  their 
own  interests  were  not  estopped,  but  they  changed 
their  methods  to  suit  changed  conditions.  And  it  is 
only  fair  to  say  that  these  persons  acted  as  uncon- 
sciously as  the  people. 

There  are  no  heroes  and  villains  in  life.  There  are 
forces  in  life;  there  are  forces  in  politics;  there  are 
forces  in  men;  in  every  individual  there  is  the  selfish 
and  the  unselfish  —  the  egoistic  and  the  altruistic 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CHANGE  37 

tendency.  And  so  in  our  national  life  the  democracy 
is  not  one  entirely  good  and  true  and  beautiful  set 
of  men,  struggling  for  a  common  good  against  the 
aristocracy,  another  entirely  bad  set  of  men.  The 
struggle  between  democracy  and  aristocracy  in 
America  is  in  every  man's  heart.  It  is  fundamental 
in  our  lives.  When  we  find  that  the  millennium 
did  not  dawn  after  crass  bribery  had  been  abol- 
ished by  the  introduction  of  the  secret  ballot,  we 
must  not  assume  that  a  number  of  men  of  wealth 
conspired  deliberately  to  postpone  the  sunrise.  We 
all  conspired;  we  were  not  ready  for  the  sunrise. 
And  so  when  bribery,  which  had  been  crass,  began  to 
grow  refined,  when  men  were  no  longer  paid  to  vote 
either  at  the  polls  or  in  office,  we  find  the  selfishness 
of  men  manifesting  itself  through  the  party  system. 
That  selfishness  massed  is  the  American  tendency  to 
aristocracy.  It  is  the  alliance  of  big  business  and 
little  business  against  altruistic  growth  —  against 
democracy. 

So  the  American  aristocracy  moved  its  forces  upon 
the  party  system  and  controlled  it,  but  with  automatic 
precision  democracy  began  to  attack  the  party  system. 
Now,  even  before  the  nineties  there  were  the  mug- 
wumps, who  advocated  independent  voting.  They 
also  attacked  the  party  system.     But  their  efforts 


429735 


38  THE  OLD   ORDER  CHANGETH 

were  sporadic.  Democracy  seems  to  have  set  about 
to  capture  the  system,  not  to  destroy  it,  for  democ- 
racy is  organic. 

Ever  since  the  party  as  a  functional  part  of  this 
government  became  established  in  our  American 
system,  it  has  been  undemocratic.  It  is  organized 
from  the  top  downward.  In  the  election  of  delegates 
to  conventions  to  name  candidates  for  offices,  the 
hold-over  officers  of  the  party  —  the  precinct,  the 
ward,  the  county,  the  state,  and  the  national  central 
committees  —  are  powerful  agencies  in  determining 
the  course  of  the  party.  Central  committeemen 
under  the  old  party  system  of  nominations  can  per- 
petuate themselves,  can  dictate  party  nominations, 
and  can  formulate  party  policies.  A  score  of  active 
men  organized  in  a  precinct  under  the  old  convention 
system  generally  controlled  the  sentiment  of  a  hundred 
of  their  unorganized  fellows.  The  few  ruled  the  many. 
That  is  aristocracy.  We  have  confused  aristocracy 
in  this  country  with  a  titled  nobility.  But  wherever 
the  few  rule  the  many,  whether  wisely  or  unwisely, 
whether  by  virtue  of  learning  or  birth  or  activity, 
or  by  the  use  of  money — that  is  aristocracy.  Under 
the  party  system  through  party  conventions  where 
great  political  power  was  delegated  without  recall 
and  without  much  direct  responsibility,  there  grew 


THE   BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CHANGE  39 

up  an  aristocracy  of  politicians.  The  caste  was  per- 
petuated by  the  sale  of  special  privileges. 

So  we  were  ruled  under  the  party  system  by  an 
aristocracy  which  was  financed  by  greed,  and  it  was 
the  problem  of  democracy  to  break  down  that 
aristocracy.  The  power  had  to  be  taken  from 
the  committeemen  and  delegates  and  distributed 
among  the  people.  That  always  could  be  done 
by  breaking  the  machine  of  the  moment  or  of  any 
locality  and  establishing  another  machine.  But 
that  remedy,  while  it  satisfied  the  moment,  was  not 
a  permanent  cure.  The  cure  lay  in  changing  the 
system. 

And  that  democracy  is  doing  in  America  to-day 
through  the  establishment  of  the  direct  primary  sys- 
tem of  nomination  of  party  candidates  for  public 
offices.  Now,  the  direct  primary  is  no  new  thing. 
It  is  almost  as  old  as  the  party  system.  In  this 
country  it  was  known  as  the  Crawford  County  plan, 
and  it  has  been  in  use  in  many  counties  over  the 
land  for  forty  years.  But  it  was  purely  local,  subject 
to  little  legal  restriction  and  always  under  the  direc- 
tion and  auspices  of  the  district,  state,  and  national 
machines.  So  it  was  not  effective.  Until  the  pri- 
mary became  a  state  institution,  regulated  by  the 
state,  by  state  laws,  a  part  of  the  government  of  the 


40  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

state,  a  state  institution  in  name  and  in  fact,  the 
primary  was  of  little  consequence. 

Broadly  speaking,  there  are  two  types  of  primary 
in  the  United  States :  the  Northern  and  the  Southern 
type.  The  Northern  type  is  this:  Upon  a  certain 
day,  at  least  sixty  days  before  any  general  election, 
and  at  a  certain  place  in  each  precinct,  the  sheriff 
of  a  county  calls  a  primary  election  at  which  all 
parties  are  compelled  to  participate  and  vote  for  the 
nomination  of  all  officers  from  township  trustee  to 
United  States  senator.  The  room  wherein  the  elec- 
tion is  held,  the  voting  booths,  the  election  judges, 
and  the  printed  ballots  are  paid  for  out  of  the  county 
treasury.  Candidates  for  nomination  to  the  various 
county  offices  are  placed  upon  the  ballot  by  petition, 
filed  with  the  county  clerk,  at  or  before  a  stated 
time,  containing  the  certified  list  of  names  of  petition- 
ing partisans  of  the  candidates.  Candidates  for  state 
offices,  including  United  States  senator,  are  placed 
upon  the  ballot  upon  petition  of  a  certain  per  cent  of 
the  total  party  vote  in  the  state,  or  in  a  certain  num- 
ber of  counties  of  the  state,  filed  in  the  office  of  the 
secretary  of  state.  In  most  of  the  states  which  have 
a  primary  of  the  Northern  type,  separate  ballots  are 
printed,  one  for  each  party;  and  when  a  legal  voter 
appears  at  the  polling  place  he  is  given  his  choice  of 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CHANGE     41 

ballots,  and  if  there  is  a  doubt  about  his  party  fealty, 
that  is  to  say,  if  a  Republican  challenger  suspects 
that  the  Democrat  is  voting  a  Republican  ballot,  the 
Democrat  is  compelled  to  swear  in  his  vote  just  as 
he  would  at  the  regular  election. 

The  votes  are  counted  and  sent  to  the  county  clerk, 
who  in  turn  certifies  the  vote  on  county  candidates 
to  the  local  authorities,  and  who  in  turn  certify  the 
vote  upon  district,  state,  and  senatorial  candidates  to 
the  secretary  of  state.  A  plurality  nomination  pre- 
vails in  all  of  the  Northern  states  on  all  county,  dis- 
trict, and  state  offices,  except  in  Washington.  There 
a  majority  is  required. 

Certificates  of  nomination  are  issued  in  all  of  the 
Northern  states  by  the  secretary  of  state  to  all  state 
officers  and  by  the  county  clerk  to  all  county  officers. 
The  nomination  of  United  States  senator  marks  the 
most  radical  difference  in  all  the  various  primary  laws. 
Oregon  has  the  most  radical  departure  from  the  ordi- 
nary primary  law.  It  puts  the  name  of  each  success- 
ful party  nominee  at  the  primary  for  the  Senate  on 
the  ballet  at  the  general  election.  And  the  majority 
or  plurality  vote  upon  the  names  of  these  candidates 
for  United  States  senator  at  the  general  election  forms 
what  might  be  called  the  plebiscite  which  advises  the 
legislature  as  to  the  opinion  of  the  people  about  the 


42  THE   OLD   ORDER  CHANGETH 

two  candidates.  This  in  effect  gives  the  people 
direct  vote  on  United  States  senator.  This  Oregon 
plan  is  also  in  use  in  Nevada,  Nebraska,  and  Idaho.1 

In  one,  Dakota,  if  there  is  no  majority  nomination 
in  the  senatorial  race,  or  no  candidate  gets  over  thirty- 
five  per  cent  of  the  party  vote,  the  two  highest  sena- 
torial candidates  go  before  the  people  in  a  second  pri- 
mary at  the  general  election.  In  Ohio  the  vote  on 
United  States  senator  is  merely  advisory.  In  Kansas 
the  vote  is  segregated  by  senatorial  and  representa- 
tive districts  so  as  to  preserve  the  integrity  of  the  leg- 
islative and  senatorial  districts.  This  plan  does  not 
provide  for  the  absolute  rule  of  the  majority.  But 
there  is  something  to  be  said  for  the  integrity  of  the 
legislative  district,  and  it  prevents  the  larger  cities 
from  overcoming  country  districts. 

In  Missouri,  for  instance,  Governor  I  oik,  in  his 
senatorial  race  in  1908,  carried  something  like  eighty- 
five  per  cent  of  the  counties,  and  was  beaten  by 
Senator  Stone,  whose  chief  vote  was  in  the  two  cities 
of  Kansas  City  and  St.  Louis. 

Missouri  has  what  is  called  the  split  primary;  that 
is  to  say,  the  primary  for  the  nomination  of  all  state 
and  county  officers  is  held  early  in  August,  as  it  is  in 
most  of  the  states  of  the  Middle  West.     But  the 

1  See  Appendix,  p.  264. 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CHANGE     43 

senatorial  primary  is  held  at  the  general  election. 
This  is  unfair,  because  it  deprives  the  people  of  know- 
ing what  kind  of  a  man  a  party  will  nominate  for 
senator;  so  that  they  cannot  vote  for  or  against  the 
legislature  which  will  elect  the  party's  candidates. 
In  all  of  the  states  the  laws  governing  campaign  ex- 
penses at  the  election  and  limiting  corporation  con- 
tributions operate  at  the  primary,  as  also  do  the 
bribery  and  corrupt  practices  acts  of  the  various 
states. 

The  Northern  states  having  this  type  of  primary, 
either  in  their  statutes  or  their  fundamental  laws, 
are  Oregon,  Washington,  California,  Nevada,  North 
Dakota,  South  Dakota,  Nebraska,  Kansas,  Oklahoma, 
Missouri,  Iowa,  Michigan  (with  certain  optional  pro- 
visions), Wisconsin,  Ohio,  Illinois,  Idaho,  New 
Hampshire,  which  does  not  include  United  States 
senator,  and  New  Jersey.  Minnesota  and  Pennsyl- 
vania have  primary  laws  providing  for  the  nomination 
of  county  and  district  officers.  The  state  of  Louisiana 
is  the  only  Southern  state  which  has  adopted  such  a 
primary.  The  legality  of  this  Northern  type  of  pri- 
mary has  not  been  generally  questioned  in  the  courts, 
though  in  Illinois,  for  some  curious  local  reason,  the 
state  supreme  court  has  declared  three  primary  laws 
unconstitutional. 


44  THE   OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

The  second  type  —  the  Southern  type  —  of  pri- 
mary is  entirely  optional.  It  is  not  paid  for  by  the 
state,  and  the  option  is  left  to  the  state  and  county 
central  committees  of  the  parties.  The  Southern 
primary  is  under  the  state  law  in  that  the  bribery 
and  corrupt  practices  acts  and  campaign  contribution 
acts  govern,  but  without  penalty  in  some  cases,  and  is 
entirely  conducted  by  the  parties'  central  committees. 
In  Texas  the  votes  are  counted  in  various  conventions, 
either  county,  district,  or  state  conventions,  before 
which  the  candidates  would  come  for  nomination. 
And  these  conventions  ratify  the  vote  of  the  party, 
but  almost  without  exception  the  Southern  type  of 
primary  is  exclusively  used  by  the  dominant  party. 
The  cost  of  the  primary  is  so  high  that  the  minority 
party  cannot  afford  to  join  in  it.  The  result  is  this, 
of  course,  that  we  have  a  democratic  expression  in  the 
Democratic  party  and  an  aristocratic  expression  in  the 
Republican  party  of  the  South.  Democracy  pre- 
vails in  state  affairs  and  aristocracy  in  federal  matters. 
Therefore  in  the  South,  generally  speaking,  the  aris- 
tocracy is  more  or  less  colored,  but  none  the  less  an 
aristocracy,  and  this  aristocracy,  like  all  aristocracies, 
is  arrogant  and  defiant  of  local  sentiment  and  feeling. 
But  so  long  as  the  democracy  will  not  tax  itself  to 
compel  a  democratic  expression  in  the  minority  party, 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CHANGE  45 

the  aristocracy  will  continue  to  dominate  Southern 
federal  affairs. 

In  most  of  the  Southern  states  the  name  of  the 
candidate  for  United  States  senator  appears  on  the 
ballot,  and  the  plurality  nominee  is  indorsed  by  the 
legislature.  Texas  has  an  admirable  plan  which 
should  be  adopted  all  over  the  Union.  It  is  an  initia- 
tive and  referendum  proposition,  which  forbids  the 
state  convention  to  indorse  any  proposed  legislation 
which  has  not  been  voted  upon  at  the  primary  upon 
popular  initiation,  and  propositions  are  put  on  the 
primary  ticket  by  petition  just  as  candidates  are  put 
on.  The  Southern  type  of  primary  prevails  in  Ar- 
kansas, Texas,  Alabama,  Tennessee,  Mississippi, 
Florida,  Georgia,  South  Carolina;  and  with  certain 
modifications,  in  Virginia  and  Kentucky.  This  in- 
cludes all  the  states  which  have  a  primary  vote  on  all 
state,  county,  congressional,  and  senatorial  candidates. 
There  is  a  hybrid  type  of  primary  in  Maryland  and 
another  in  West  Virginia  which  is  of  little  use. 

Every  one  of  these  state  fights  for  a  state-wide, 
state-controlled  primary  law  has  been  almost  exactly 
like  each  of  the  others.  When  the  demand  for  a  state- 
wide primary  is  incipient  in  a  state,  the  machine 
passes  a  law  that  means  nothing.  It  bears  the  pri- 
mary name,  and  gives  nothing  to  the  people.    It 


46  THE   OLD   ORDER  CHANGETH 

merely  saves  the  face  of  the  party  by  "redeeming" 
a  party  pledge,  thus  giving  a  talking  point  to  cam- 
paign orators.  Sometimes  this  law  satisfies  the 
people  for  a  few  years.  Then  the  demand  comes  up 
again,  stronger  than  ever,  and  the  machine  leaders 
begin  to  combat  it.  They  try  legislative  jockeying 
with  it.  They  smuggle  it  into  unfriendly  committees. 
They  report  bills  with  " jokers"  in  them.  But  when 
a  primary  law  leader  is  developed  in  a  state,  then  the 
fight  begins.  It  is  the  game  to  begin  compromising 
with  that  leader;  to  offer  him  a  primary  upon  city 
and  county  officers.  Next  congressmen  are  put  in; 
then  governor;  after  that  state  officers,  and  finally 
United  States  senators  are  offered.  But  before  the 
machine  surrenders  United  States  senator,  it  is 
the  common  machine  tactics  to  go  through  three 
stages  of  compromise:  First  to  offer  an  advisory 
vote  on  senator  which  shall  not  be  binding  unless 
there  is  a  majority  vote.  When  that  is  rejected,  the 
machine  always  offers  to  split  the  vote  on  United 
States  senator,  putting  it  off  until  the  November  elec- 
tion so  that  the  people  will  not  know  whether  the 
corporation  candidate  has  won,  until  it  is  too  late  to 
defeat  the  legislature  of  the  shameless  party  that 
named  the  corporation  candidate;  and  finally,  the 
machine  offers  to  have  the  United  States  senator 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CHANGE     47 

nominated  by  legislative  and  state  senatorial  district 
majorities  rather  than  by  a  state- wide  vote.  Then 
the  machine  surrenders.  That  is  the  last  ditch. 
And  it  will  always  surrender  if  the  leaders  for  primary 
reform  refuse  to  compromise  and  keep  on  fighting  for 
the  good  law  without  turning  into  traps  and  pitfalls. 
Compromise  is  the  deadly  menace  of  every  primary 
fight. 

The  rise  of  democracy  in  the  Middle  and  Southern 
states,  across  the  Mississippi  Valley,  and  along  the 
Pacific  coast  has  been  marked  by  another  indication 
that  the  people  know,  either  consciously  or  sub- 
consciously, where  the  dams  are  in  the  current  of 
progress  toward  self-government.  For  not  merely 
in  the  West  and  South,  but  all  over  the  country,  the 
people  have  passed  laws  compelling  candidates  and 
party  committees  to  file  statements  of  their  expendi- 
tures and  their  sources  of  income,  and  many  states 
have  enacted  laws  limiting  the  amount  of  money  that 
candidates  or  committees  may  spend  in  any  primary 
campaign  or  in  a  campaign  before  a  general  election. 
These  laws  are  becoming  universal.  Publicity  of 
expenses  is  required  of  candidates  and  party  com- 
mittees in  Alabama,  West  Virginia,  Wisconsin,  Ne- 
braska, Kansas,  Montana  and  Washington;  and 
campaign  expenses  are  limited  either  as  to  amount 


48  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

or  as  to  the  right  of  corporations  to  contribute 
in  Arizona,  California,  Colorado,  Missouri,  Okla- 
homa, Nebraska,  North  Dakota,  Minnesota,  Indiana, 
Pennsylvania,  New  York,  Connecticut,  Massachu- 
setts, New  Hampshire,  Florida,  Texas,  Oregon,  and 
Arkansas. 

The  movement  to  divorce  the  corporation  from 
politics  is  so  general  that  a  federal  law  has  been  en- 
acted limiting  campaign  contributions.  And  for  the 
first  time  in  the  history  of  the  United  States  the  people 
know  now  exactly  how  much  it  costs  to  conduct  a 
national  campaign  and  from  what  sources  the  money 
comes.  No  more  important  step  toward  government 
by  the  people,  for  the  people,  has  been  taken  in  this 
Republic  since  its  beginning.  It  is  true  that  in  many 
states  the  law  is  a  form  only;  but  the  fact  that  it  is 
a  law  indicates  a  tendency  in  American  thought  which 
eventually  will  express  itself  in  custom  and  usage  as 
it  is  now  expressed  in  statute.  For  when  the  people 
know  where  to  strike  at  an  evil,  they  always  hit  it. 
And  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  decree  of  divorce  between 
business  and  politics  will  be  made  absolute  within  a 
few  years.  Such  flagrant  liaisons  as  that  which  en- 
acted the  tariff  bill  of  1909  will  serve  to  make  the 
relations  between  high  politics  and  high  finance  so 
obvious  that  prohibition  will  be  easy.     Democracy 


THE   BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CHANGE  49 

proposes  to  put  capital  out  of  politics;  so  that  the 
rights  of  men  where  they  conflict  with  the  rights  of 
property  may  be  impartially  defined. 

To  realize  the  change  that  has  come  over  the 
country  in  the  matter  of  campaign  publicity  and 
campaign  contributions,  it  should  be  remembered 
that  in  1896  Chairman  Hanna,  of  the  Republican 
National  Central  Committee,  sent  money  into  prac- 
tically every  American  state  to  help  his  party.  Chair- 
man Jones,  of  the  Democratic  committee,  had  less 
money  than  Chairman  Hanna,  but  he  sent  it  out  into 
the  country  to  do  what  it  could.  In  1908  the  various 
states  sent  money  to  the  national  committees,  and 
practically  no  money  was  sent  from  the  national  com- 
mittees to  the  state  committees,  except  that  which 
came  through  the  congressional  committees  of  both 
parties.  The  need  of  reform  in  congressional  party 
committees  was  made  manifest  in  the  tariff  debate  of 
1909.  But  the  election  of  1908  was  an  honest  elec- 
tion. To  prophesy  such  an  election  ten  years  ago 
would  have  marked  the  prophet  for  a  visionary. 
And  to  have  told  the  campaign  managers  of  '84  or  '88 
that  within  a  quarter  of  a  century  the  whole  nation 
would  be  voting  a  secret  ballot,  for  candidates 
nominated  in  two-thirds  of  the  American  states  by  a 
direct  vote  of  the  people,  without  the  intervention  of 


50  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

conventions  or  caucuses,  and  that  further  than  that 
every  dollar  spent  by  a  candidate  or  by  a  party  com- 
mittee would  have  to  be  publicly  accounted  for, 
both  coming  and  going  —  such  a  tale  would  have  set 
Quay  and  Whitney  and  Clarkson  and  Dudley  and  the 
managers  of  those  days  to  cackling  in  derision  until 
they  were  black  in  the  face.  It  was  twenty  years 
ago  that  Senator  Ingalls  of  Kansas,  one  of  the  cleanest 
men  in  public  life  in  that  day,  looking  ahead  to  the 
limit  of  his  vision,  said:  "The  purification  of  politics 
is  an  iridescent  dream." 

But  the  secret  ballot,  the  direct  primary,  and  the 
purged  party  —  which  are  now  fairly  well  assured  in 
American  politics  —  do  not  set  the  metes  and  bounds 
of  progress  toward  self-government  in  this  country. 
They  are  fundamental  reforms,  it  is  true,  and  they  are 
the  steps  that  are  necessary  before  there  may  be  any 
real  forward  movement.  For  it  will  be  seen  that  each 
one  of  these  movements  is  a  leveling  process,  a  tend- 
ency to  make  money,  capital,  property,  wealth,  or 
financial  distinction  count  for  nothing  save  as  an  in- 
direct influence  in  the  ballot  box.  Each  of  these 
innovations,  the  secret  ballot,  the  primary,  and  the 
reformed  party,  is  a  step  toward  democracy  —  a 
step  toward  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and 
away  from  the  Constitution,  which  so  feared  majority 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CHANGE  51 

rule  that  the  majority  was  hedged  about  with  checks 
and  balances  at  every  possible  point.  In  the  early 
days  of  the  Republic  the  people  annulled  the  Con- 
stitution by  getting  a  direct  vote  on  the  President, 
and  thus  obtained  the  executive  branch  of  the  govern- 
ment. Now  they  are  capturing  the  legislative  branch 
through  the  primary,  which  to-day  puts  over  half  the 
United  States  senators  under  the  direct  vote  of  the 
people.  When  one  stops  to  think  that  in  Oregon, 
Washington,  Nevada,  Idaho,  California,  North 
Dakota,  South  Dakota,  Nebraska,  Kansas,  Okla- 
homa, Texas,  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  Missouri,  Iowa, 
Wisconsin,  Ohio,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  Florida, 
Georgia,  Tennessee,  South  Carolina,  Virginia,  New 
Jersey,  and  Kentucky,  United  States  senators  at 
the  next  election  will  go  directly  to  the  people  for 
nominations,  and  not  to  the  railroads  and  the  public 
service  corporations  of  their  respective  states,  in  short, 
not  to  capital  as  they  did  ten  years  ago,  one  realizes 
how  revolutionary  are  the  changes  that  are  coming 
into  our  system.  The  democracy  that  was  gathering 
strength  in  the  days  of  Hanna  is  beginning  to  move 
in  the  nation. 

Indeed,  the  growth  of  fundamental  democracy  in 
this  country  is  astonishing.  Thirty  years  ago  the 
secret  ballot  was  regarded  as  a  passing  craze  by  pro- 


52  THE  OLD   ORDER  CHANGETH 

fessional  politicians.  Twenty  years  ago  it  was  a  vital 
issue  in  nearly  every  American  state.  To-day  the 
secret  ballot  is  universal  in  American  politics.  Ten 
years  ago  the  direct  primary  was  the  subject  of  an 
academic  discussion  in  the  University  of  Michigan 
by  a  young  man  named  La  Follette  of  Wisconsin. 
Now  it  is  in  active  operation  in  over  two-thirds  of 
our  American  states,  and  over  half  of  the  American 
people  use  the  direct  primary  as  a  weapon  of  self- 
government.  Five  years  ago  the  recall  was  a  piece 
of  freak  legislation  in  Oregon.  To-day  more  Ameri- 
can citizens  are  living  under  laws  giving  them  the 
power  of  recall  than  were  living  under  the  secret 
ballot  when  Garfield  came  to  the  White  House,  and 
many  times  more  people  have  the  power  to  recall 
certain  public  officers  to-day  than  had  the  advantages 
of  the  direct  primary  form  of  party  nominations  when 
Theodore  Roosevelt  came  to  Washington.  The 
referendum  is  only  five  years  behind  the  primary. 
Prophecy  with  these  facts  before  one  becomes  some- 
thing more  than  a  rash  guess. 

The  democracy  has  the  executive  and  the  legislative 
branches  of  the  state  and  federal  government  under 
its  direct  control;  for  in  the  nomination  of  a  majority 
of  the  members  of  the  House  and  of  the  Senate  the 
personification    of    property    is    unimportant.     By 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CHANGE  53 

making  the  party  a  legalized  state  institution,  by  pay- 
ing for  the  party  primaries  with  state  taxes,  by  requir- 
ing candidates  at  primaries  to  file  their  expense  ac- 
counts and  a  list  of  their  contributors  (as  is  done  in 
some  states),  by  limiting  the  amount  to  be  spent  (as  is 
done  in  certain  states),  and  by  guaranteeing  a  secret 
vote  and  a  fair  count,  the  state  has  broken  the  power 
of  money  in  politics.  Capital  is  not  eliminated  from 
politics,  but  it  is  hampered  and  circumscribed,  and  is 
not  the  dominant  force  that  it  was  ten  years  ago. 
Then  the  political  machine  was  financed  by  capital 
invested  in  public  service  corporations  and  was  con- 
tinually trying  to  avoid  the  responsibility  of  its  public 
partnership.  Then  the  political  machine  quietly  sold 
special  privileges  to  public  service  corporations. 
Now  the  political  machine  is  in  a  fair  way  to  be  re- 
duced to  mere  political  scrap  iron  by  the  rise  of  the 
people.  To-day  in  states  having  the  primary  under 
the  state  control  the  corporation  candidate  for  any 
public  office  is  handicapped.  The  men  elected  to  the 
United  States  Senate  from  states  having  the  Northern 
type  of  primary  generally  have  been  free  men,  free 
from  machine  and  corporation  taint.  Under  the  pri- 
mary system  any  clean,  quick-witted  man  in  these 
states  can  defeat  the  corporation  senatorial  candidate 
at  the  primary  if  the  people  desire  to  defeat  him. 


54  THE   OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

This  advance  alone  is  worth  the  cost  of  the  primary — 
something  like  $100,000  for  each  state  biennially. 
Moreover,  the  fact  that  governors  and  state  officers, 
legislators  and  county  officers,  also  are  free  men 
makes  the  primary  invaluable  in  terms  of  money. 
Taft  and  Bryan,  the  two  men  who  had  less  money 
behind  them  than  any  of  their  opponents,  the  two 
men  whom  the  "interests"  did  not  wish  to  see  nomi- 
nated, headed  the  tickets  of  the  two  great  parties  in 
1908.  And  when  those  United  States  senators  who 
win  their  nominations  and  elections  without  the  aid 
of  the  railroads  and  the  public  service  corporations, 
and  win  in  the  face  of  the  opposition  of  these  organ- 
izations of  capital  —  when  these  senators  begin  to 
name  federal  judges,  the  supreme  court  will  begin  to 
reverse  itself  and  the  people  will  capture  the  lower 
federal  courts  —  the  last  citadel  of  capital.  But  that 
is  almost  an  "iridescent  dream." 

However,  just  now  the  people  are  finding  a  way 
around  the  legislative  veto  of  the  state  courts.  And 
this  they  are  doing  more  generally  than  may  be  real- 
ized by  many  people.  The  voters  are  taking  two 
methods  of  circumventing  the  legislative  veto  of  the 
courts:  first,  by  amending  their  state  constitutions, 
or  making  new  constitutions ;  and,  second,  by  direct 
legislation,  or  the  modification  of  it  known  as  the  ini- 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CHANGE  55 

tiative  and  referendum.     State  courts  are  elective, 
and  therefore  are  afraid  of  majorities.     They  cannot 
declare  constitutional  amendments  unconstitutional, 
and  they  handle  laws  adopted  by  a  direct  vote  of  the 
people  with  great  care.    Hence  the  prevalence  of  the 
constitutional  amendment  in  American  states,  and 
the  growth  of  the  initiative  and  referendum  from 
Maine  to  California^  The  tendency  to  amend  a  state 
constitution  is  not  a  local  phenomenon.     In   1908 
California  voted  on  eighteen  amendments,  and  Mis- 
souri voted  on  eight.      If  a   state  may  be   said  to 
have  a  tendency  to  amend  its  constitution  when  it  has 
voted  upon  one  or  more  amendments  at  nearly  every 
biennial  election  for  half  a  dozen  years,   then  the 
tendency  is  fairly  marked  in  California,  Alabama, 
Utah,  Massachusetts,  Oregon,  Rhode  Island,  Texas, 
Minnesota,  New  Jersey,  Montana,  Florida,   Mary- 
land, and  Mississippi,  in  New  York,  where  the  amend- 
ment is   a    slow  and  difficult  process,  in  Vermont, 
where  there  is  agitation  for  a  constitutional  conven- 
tion, in  Michigan,  where  a  new  constitution  has  just 
been  adopted,  in  Illinois,  in  Maine,  where  the  initiative 
and  referendum  has  just  been  instituted  by  constitu- 
tional amendment,  and  in  New  Hampshire,  Louisiana, 
Missouri,  and  Kansas.     Where  the  habit  of  amending 
the  state  constitution  becomes  settled,  as  it  is  in 


56  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

California  and  Missouri,  the  habit  amounts  to  a  public 
referendum  of  many  laws,  and  from  the  standpoint 
of  direct  legislation  and  government  by  the  majority 
this  habit  is  praiseworthy.  If,  however,  the  guarantee 
of  absolutely  unrestricted  capital  is  considered  more 
important  than  the  majority  rule,  the  habit  of  amend- 
ing the  constitution  is  dangerous  and  revolutionary. 
The  value  of  the  initiative  and  referendum  depends 
also  upon  the  point  from  which  it  is  viewed.  In 
certain  quarters  politics  is  considered  the  science  of 
government  of  the  many  by  the  few.  Also  a  govern- 
ment is  considered  excellent  when  it  protects  invest- 
ment, when  it  makes  the  right  of  contract  more  im- 
portant than  the  welfare  of  citizens,  when  it  protects 
vested  rights  even  after  they  become  vested  wrongs. 
In  those  quarters  the  initiative  and  referendum,  which 
is  coming  into  American  government  as  surely  as 
the  secret  ballot  came,  will  be  deemed  a  dangerous 
menace  to  our  institutions.  Certainly  it  is  a  depar- 
ture from  the  idea  of  a  government  by  the  few  which 
inspired  the  fathers  of  the  federal  Constitution  when 
Chief  Justice  John  Marshall  gave  the  federal  judiciary 
the  final  veto  on  all  laws  passed  by  state  or  national 
legislatures.  And  the  issue  should  be  met  candidly. 
The  friends  of  the  movement  for  direct  legislation 
should  admit  frankly  that  the  purpose  of  their  cause 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CHANGE  57 

is  two-fold:  first,  to  compel  legislatures  to  act 
quickly  and  without  evasion;  and  second,  to  circum- 
vent the  veto  of  such  courts  as  are  elective,  and  hence 
dependent  upon  popular  majorities,  and  to  put 
whatever  righteousness  there  is  in  a  definitely  regis- 
tered expression  of  popular  will  before  such  courts  as 
are  not  elective  to  stay  them  in  their  vetoes.  For 
the  veto  power  of  the  American  courts  over  legislation 
—  under  the  assumed  right  to  declare  legislation  "  un- 
constitutional" —  is  one  of  the  most  ruthless  checks 
upon  democracy  permitted  by  any  civilized  people. 
European  kings  and  courts  do  not  have  such  reaction- 
ary power;  yet  in  the  end  it  seems  to  make  for 
righteousness.  Because  under  that  power  in  America 
people  have  developed  a  patience  and  a  conscience  and 
a  patriotic  self-abnegation  which  fits  them  to  progress 
in  the  light  of  the  vision  within  them.  So  the  initia- 
tive and  referendum  —  a  most  outlandish  phrase  — 
which  is  coming  into  state  governments  and  city  gov- 
ernments all  over  the  country  will  be  the  instrument 
of  a  self-restrained  people.  It  will  not  be  the  weapon 
of  a  mob. 

The  plan  of  the  initiative  and  referendum  briefly 
is  best  illustrated  by  extracts  from  the  constitutional 
amendment  of  the  state  of  Oregon.1 

1  The  legislative  authority  of  the  state  shall  be  vested  in  a  legis- 
lative assembly,  consisting  of  a  senate  and  house  of  representatives, 


58  THE   OLD   ORDER  CHANGETH 

Maine  and  Missouri  have  adopted  the  initiative 
and  referendum  as  a  part  of  their  constitutions. 
South  Dakota,  Oregon,  Oklahoma,  Utah,  Montana, 
have  the  initiative  and  referendum  as  a  part  of  either 
their  fundamental  law  or  upon  their  statutes.  Ne- 
vada has  the  referendum,  and  is  about  to  vote  on  the 
proposition  to  establish  the  initiative  and  referendum. 
Illinois  and  Texas  have  the  advisory  initiative;  in  the 
case  of  Illinois  it  is  enacted  under  a  law  called  the  public 
policy  law,  and  in  the  case  of  Texas  it  is  in  the  pri- 

but  the  people  reserve  to  themselves  power  to  propose  laws  and 
amendments  to  the  constitution  and  to  enact  or  reject  the  same  at 
the  polls,  independent  of  the  legislative  assembly,  and  also  reserve 
power  at  their  own  option  to  approve  or  reject  at  the  polls  any  act 
of  the  legislative  assembly.  The  first  power  reserved  by  the  peo- 
ple is  the  initiative,  and  not  more  than  eight  per  cent  of  the  legal 
voters  shall  be  required  to  propose  any  measure  by  such  petition, 
and  every  such  petition  shall  include  the  full  text  of  the  measure 
so  proposed.  Initiative  petitions  shall  be  filed  with  the  secretary 
of  state  not  less  than  four  months  before  the  election  at  which  they 
are  to  be  voted  upon  (and  a  majority  vote  adopts  the  measure). 
The  second  power  is  the  referendum,  and  it  may  be  ordered  (ex- 
cept as  to  laws  necessary  for  the  immediate  preservation  of  the 
public  peace,  health,  or  safety)  either  by  the  petition  signed  by 
five  per  cent  of  the  legal  voters,  or  by  the  legislative  assembly,  as 
other  bills  are  enacted.  Referendum  petitions  shall  be  filed  with 
the  secretary  of  state  not  more  than  ninety  days  after  the  final 
adjournment  of  the  session  of  the  legislative  assembly  which 
passed  the  bill  on  which  the  referendum  is  demanded.  The  veto 
power  of  the  governor  shall  not  extend  to  measures  referred  to  the 
people. 


THE   BEGINNINGS  OF  THE   CHANGE  59 

mary  election  law,  which  forbids  party  platforms  to 
indorse  proposed  legislation  that  is  not  first  voted 
upon  at  the  primaries  and  indorsed  by  the  people. 
Nebraska  gives  the  right  of  initiative  and  referendum 
to  her  cities.  Kansas  grants  the  referendum  on  all 
franchises  to  cities.  Arkansas  has  submitted  a  con- 
stitutional amendment  enabling  the  establishment 
of  the  initiative  and  referendum  by  statute.  The 
movement  for  constitutional  state-wide  laws  providing 
for  the  initiative  and  referendum  is  now  well  under 
way  in  thirty  states  of  the  Union.  The  movement 
never  has  been  defeated  by  the  people  of  a  state 
when  it  has  been  presented  to  them  in  a  simple  form 
for  a  direct  vote.  The  legislatures  of  Wisconsin,  of 
Minnesota,  of  Iowa,  of  Oregon,  of  Mississippi,  of 
South  Dakota,  of  Nebraska,  of  Delaware,  of  North 
Carolina,  of  California,  of  Oklahoma,  of  Wash- 
ington, of  Idaho,  of  Kansas,  of  Texas,  of  Illinois, 
of  North  Dakota,  of  Missouri,  of  Montana,  of  Colo- 
rado, of  New  York,  of  Massachusetts,  of  Tennessee,  of 
Maine,  and  of  Georgia  have  granted  either  the  ini- 
tiative and  referendum  or  one  of  them  to  certain  cities 
in  these  twenty-five  states. 

Thus  we  see  that  while  the  secret  ballot  in  the  nation 
is  universal,  and  the  primary  prevails  in  two  thirds 
of  the  American  states,  the  movement  for  direct  legis- 


60  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

lation  has  gained  foothold  in  twenty-five  states,  and 
is  directly  before  the  people,  either  as  a  constitutional 
amendment,  a  pledge  of  the  dominant  party,  or  as  a 
pledge  of  the  majority  of  the  members  elected  to  the 
legislature,  or  in  the  message  of  the  governor,  in  five 
other  states  —  making  a  total  of  thirty  American 
commonwealths  wherein  there  is  an  aggressive  move- 
ment toward  direct  legislation.  It  is  noteworthy 
that  the  movement  has  followed  the  direct  primary 
movement  and  has  doubled  its  strength  biennially 
since  1901.  And  back  of  the  movement  for  the  initia- 
tive and  referendum  and  the  primary  and  the  secret 
ballot,  waiting  silently  for  its  summons  to  come  to 
the  active  service  of  democracy,  like  Madame  Defarge 
knitting  in  the  wrongs  of  the  people,  stands  the  Recall.1  * 

So  the  appearance  of  the  recall,  in  the  cities  of  a 
dozen  states  within  a  little  over  a  year,  should  make 
those  statesmen  nervous  who  look  forward  to  the 
time  when  the  country  will  go  back  to  the  Good  Old 
Days.  For  this  tightening  grip  of  the  people  upon 
their  state  governments,  as  evidenced  in  some  form 
in  every  American  state,  has  been  an  intelligent, 
gradual,  well-directed  growth  of  popular  power. 
Its  direction  has  been  wise;  for  from  the  beginning  to 
the  present  there  has  been  no  spasm  of  public  indig- 

1  Appendix,  p.  263. 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CHANGE  61 

nation  followed  by  reaction.  Whose  wisdom  directed 
it?  No  man's  name  is  connected  with  it.  No  party 
or  propaganda  has  been  behind  the  movement.  It 
operates  in  Democratic  states  and  in  Republican 
states  with  equal  efficiency.  And  in  no  American 
state  has  the  fight  been  abandoned,  either  for  the 
secret  ballot,  the  publicity  of  party  financing,  the 
primary,  the  initiative  and  referendum,  or  the  recall, 
after  it  has  become  a  serious  issue  of  any  group  of 
men  of  any  party.  The  movement  is  one  of  the  larg- 
est vital  things  in  our  politics  to-day,  but  politicians 
generally  —  even  the  best  of  them  —  do  not  seem  to 
understand  it.  It  is  as  unobtrusive  as  the  wonderful 
miracle  of  growth.  And  in  all  the  heavens,  the  sea, 
and  the  earth  this  movement  has  no  other  prototype 
except  the  miracle  of  growth  that  we  pass  by  un- 
noticed every  day  of  our  lives.  It  is  growth  —  spirit- 
ual growth  in  the  hearts  of  the  American  people. 
It  is  a  big  moral  movement  in  democracy. 

For  each  one  of  these  four  reforms  —  the  secret 
ballot,  the  publicity  of  party  finance,  the  direct  pri- 
mary, and  direct  legislation — requires  a  broader  scope 
for  the  individual's  concern  than  he  would  have  under 
the  old  order.  The  man  who  refuses  to  sell  his  vote 
when  bribery  is  a  " conventional  crime"  is  considering 
some  interest  other  than  his  own.     The  man  who 


62  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

votes  for  a  direct  primary  foregoes  a  place  in  the 
aristocracy  of  the  "organization"  forever  by  abolish- 
ing that  aristocracy.  The  man  who  demands  pub- 
licity in  campaign  finance  knows  that  he  is  cutting  the 
revenue  from  under  his  own  party,  and  that  there 
will  be  less  fun  in  the  campaign.  The  man  who 
urges  direct  legislation  puts  a  vast  power  in  the  hands 
of  his  neighbors  to  control  him.  Only  as  men  have 
faith  in  the  force  outside  themselves  that  makes  for 
righteousness  will  they  surrender  personal  preroga- 
tives to  the  public  good  as  the  people  have  been 
surrendering  their  individual  advantage  in  this  demo- 
cratic movement.  The  people  are  controlling  them- 
selves. Altruism  is  gaining  strength  for  some  future 
struggle  with  the  atomic  force  of  egoism  in  society. 
But  who  has  led  the  people  in  this  journey  toward 
democracy?  Who  has  directed  this  movement?  Who 
has  performed  the  miracle  of  democratic  growth  in 
the  hearts  of  the  people?  Here  it  is  —  the  great 
surrender  which  is  bringing  the  great  reward  —  an 
old  equation  in  the  arithmetic  of  Providence.  But 
who  has  put  the  problem  and  worked  it  out?  No 
man  —  no  group  of  men  even  —  has  done  it.  Yet 
here  it  is  —  no  more  strange  or  mysterious  than  any 
other  of  the  miracles  of  growth  about  us  that  our  eyes 
see  and  our  souls  ignore. 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  CHANGE  63 

The  good  will  of  the  people  —  the  widening  faith  of 
men  in  one  another,  in  the  combined  wisdom  of  the 
numerical  majority  —  indicates  the  presence  of  a  hu- 
man trust  that  only  may  come  to  a  people  with  broad- 
ening humanity,  widening  human  love  for  one's  fel- 
lows. And  if  God  is  love,  as  the  prophets  say,  then 
love  is  God,  and  this  growing  abnegation  of  self  to 
democracy  is  a  divinely  planted  instinct  —  one  with 
the  miracles  of  life  about  us.  If  this  is  true,  if  the 
growth  of  democracy  in  this  country  is  as  natural  as 
the  inexplicable  wonders  of  growth  in  the  woods  and 
fields  and  cities  of  men,  then  democracy  maybe  trusted. 
For  its  title  is  secure,  and  so  we  may  understand  cer- 
tain signs  of  the  times.  For  what  do  we  see  in  this 
programme  of  American  democracy  ? 

It  is  as  old-fashioned  as  the  fog.  Indeed  what 
is  the  fight  of  our  democracy  against  unfair 
competition,  but  the  cause  against  him  that 
"taketh  reward  against  the  innocent"?  What  is 
the  contest  of  the  people  against  overcapitalization 
but  a  struggle  with  him  that  "putteth  his  money 
out  to  usury"?  What  is  the  campaign  of  all  decent 
Americans  for  simple  business  honesty,  but  scorn  for 
"the  reprobate"?  What  is  this  broadening  intelli- 
gence of  the  Republic,  which  faced  a  panic  and  did 
not  flinch  from  its  conviction  of  righteousness,  but 


64  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

"him  that  sweareth  to  his  own  hurt  and  changeth 
not"?  The  tendency  to  democracy  is  a  tendency 
to  altruism,  and  altruism  is  love  of  kind,  and  God  is 
love.  The  social,  political,  and  economic  forces  re- 
leased by  steam  —  democracy  and  capital  —  are  in  the 
crucible  of  our  national  life.  They  are  fusing.  But 
there  will  be  no  explosion.  For  when  democracy 
comes  to  the  problems  that  have  baffled  other  nations, 
if  democracy  holds  true  to  faith,  true  to  its  instinct, 
we  may  expect  democracy  to  be  just. 

But  those  who  would  use  democracy  for  an  end, 
who  would  make  it  serve  them  by  flattering  it,  by 
making  it  mad  with  power,  those  who  would  teach 
democracy  the  doctrine  of  an  eye  for  an  eye,  and  a 
tooth  for  a  tooth,  even  against  those  who  have  op- 
pressed the  people,  they  are  democracy's  foes.    For  — 

'in         " 


"  Except  the  Lord  shall  build  the  house,  they  labor  in  vain  that 
build  it ;  except  the  Lord  keep  the  city,  the  watchman  waketh  but 


CHAPTER  IV 

CERTAIN   DEFINITE   TENDENCIES 

There  is  danger  always  when  man  makes  a  thing  — 
whether  it  be  a  king,  a  constitution,  a  city,  a  democ- 
racy, or  what  not  in  the  way  of  a  human  institution  — 
of  his  mistaking  the  thing  for  an  end,  when  it  should 
be  merely  a  means  of  human  usefulness.  The  real 
danger  from  democracy  is  that  we  will  get  drunk  on 
it.  Government  of  the  many  by  the  many  is  not 
necessarily  more  desirable  than  the  government  of  all 
by  one.  The  tyranny  of  the  mob  was  known  by  the 
French  to  be  as  cruel  as  the  tyranny  of  a  king.  And 
there  is  grave  danger  that  the  rise  of  democracy  may 
not  be  accompanied  by  wisdom  and  self-restraint. 
There  must  be  a  check  on  the  power  of  the  masses; 
and  the  veto  of  the  courts  on  legislation  is  not  only 
beneficent,  but  absolutely  necessary,  if  the  masses  are 
not  checked  in  their  use  of  power  by  their  own  broad 
charity,  their  own  wide  intelligence,  and  their  un- 
selfish courage  to  do  the  right  even  against  their  im- 
mediate material  interests.  The  success  or  failure 
of  democracy  depends  entirely  upon  that  working 

»  65 


66  THE   OLD   ORDER  CHANGETH 

common  sense  of  impersonal  justice  in  the  average 
man,  —  that  common  sense  of  kindness  best  termed 
righteousness.  And  as  the  essence  of  what  preachers 
call  sin  is  mere  selfishness,  it  follows  if  we  are  to  use  our 
reformed  ballots,  our  cleansed  party  system,  our  direct 
primary  nominations,  or  our  direct  legislation  to 
any  good  end  in  this  world,  that  we  must  depend 
upon  the  breadth  of  view  of  the  average  man  for  our 
good  end  and  also  upon  the  amount  of  righteous, 
unselfish  common  sense  that  men  put  into  our  ballot 
boxes. 

It  will  be  interesting,  therefore,  in  considering  this 
new  democracy  now  growing  into  power  at  the  begin- 
ning of  this  century,  to  observe  what  things  attract 
its  attention.  For  as  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart  so 
is  he.  And  it  is  fair  to  take  a  man  off  his  guard  to  get 
at  his  real  convictions.  If  ever  democracy  is  off  its 
guard,  it  is  during  a  presidential  campaign.  So  that 
the  platforms,  pronouncements,  and  propaganda  of 
the  campaign,  represent  what  America  really  believes 
and  secretly  hopes  for. 

Now,  the  campaign  of  1908  was  a  radical  campaign. 
The  differences  between  the  parties  were  not  differ- 
ences of  creed,  but  differences  of  degree  in  the  accept- 
ance of  a  common  creed.  Both  parties,  for  instance, 
declared  in  favor  of  an  immediate  revision  of  the 


CERTAIN   DEFINITE  TENDENCIES  67 

tariff;  both  parties  declared  in  favor  of  controlling 
combinations  of  capital  called  the  trusts;  both  parties 
declared  strongly  for  public  control  of  the  transporta- 
tion systems  of  the  country;  both  parties  pledged 
themselves  to  guarantee  certain  depositors  in  banks 
against  loss  —  the  Democrats  promising  a  bank  guar- 
antee law  for  all  banks,  the  Republicans  promising  to 
establish  postal  savings  banks;  both  party  platforms 
strongly  advocated  the  restriction  of  capitalization  in 
public  utilities  corporations;  and  both  party  leaders 
expressed  in  their  official  letters  of  acceptance  a  belief 
in  the  income  tax,  the  inheritance  tax,  and  the  enact- 
ment of  a  law  which  would  consider  the  physical 
valuation  of  railroads  as  a  part  of  the  cost  of  service 
upon  which  estimated  rates  should  be  made  by  com- 
missions. Now,  all  those  fish  will  go  on  one  string: 
the  restriction  of  capital.  Lower  tariffs  restrict  capi- 
tal by  removing  the  public  bonus  which  enables  capital 
to  meet  foreign  competition;  the  transportation  ques- 
tion stated  in  the  terms  of  the  Roosevelt  policies — over 
which  the  only  dispute  between  the  two  parties  was 
one  of  priority  of  discovery  —  restricts  capital  by 
requiring  improved  service  and  controlled  rates;  the 
bank  guarantee  law,  whether  by  postal  savings  banks 
or  by  the  depositors'  guarantee,  restricts  banking  capi- 
tal in  a  large  area  of  its  operations;   the  control  of 


68  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

trusts  and  monopolies  —  whether  on  a  basis  of  the  size 
of  the  trust  or  its  iniquities  —  restricts  capital  in  its 
tendency  to  form  large  aggregates,  selfish,  unrestrained, 
which  by  their  very  size  feel  that  they  must  move  in 
a  domain  of  their  own  beyond  the  plane  of  common 
morality.  The  income  and  inheritance  taxes  restrict 
capital  by  the  oldest  form  of  restriction  in  the  world, 
simple  subtraction. 

Mr.  Bryan  differed  entirely  with  Mr.  Taft  as  to  the 
methods  to  be  used  in  restricting  the  operations  of 
capital,  but  Mr.  Taft  was  as  emphatic  as  Mr.  Bryan 
in  declaring  that  the  restrictions  should  be  made. 
And  it  was  because  the  people  believed  that  on  the 
whole  they  could  trust  the  efficiency  of  Mr.  Taft 
that  they  chose  him  in  preference  to  Mr.  Bryan. 
The  victory  of  Mr.  Taft  indicated  a  deep-seated  con- 
viction in  the  minds  of  the  people  that  their  widen- 
ing moral  sense  should  change  the  fundamental  legal 
view  of  the  nation  upon  the  subject  of  capital. 

The  popular  belief  in  the  public  interest  and  control 
of  what  hitherto  has  been  considered  private  property 
is  expressed  best  by  an  opinion  of  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court.  The  court  holds  that ' '  when  the  owner 
of  a  property  devotes  it  to  a  use  in  which  the  public 
has  an  interest,  he  in  effect  grants  to  the  public  an 
interest  in  such  use;  and  must  to  the  extent  of  that 


CERTAIN   DEFINITE  TENDENCIES  69 

interest  submit  to  be  controlled  by  the  public  for  the 
common  good,  so  long  as  he  maintains  the  use."1 

So  here  we  have  the  problem  of  democracy  restated : 
to  fetter  greed  by  the  common  good.  It  is  the  com- 
monplace conflict  between  egoism  and  altruism,  be- 
tween the  centripetal  and  centrifugal  forces  of  nature, 
of  life,  of  society.  To  define  the  limited  rights  of 
private  property  within  the  metes  and  bounds  of  the 
common  good,  to  express  in  terms  not  only  of  statute, 
but  of  law  and  custom,  the  creed  of  a  people  moved  in 
some  small  measure  away  from  the  selfishness  of  other 
generations  —  that  is  the  mission  of  our  twentieth 
century  democracy.  When  that  task  is  done,  we  shall 
have  conquered,  spiritualized,  and  socialized  steam. 
And  to  set  out  on  that  mission  we  have  seen  in  the 
foregoing  chapter  how  the  people  have  been  fighting 
themselves  free,  fighting  to  get  capital  out  of  politics, 
by  taking  money  out  of  the  ballot  box,  the  conven- 
tion, and  the  legislature. 

A  government  dominated  by  the  aristocracy  of  poli- 
ticians would  naturally  be  a  government  for  the  friends 
of  the  politicians.  The  politicians  were  financed 
by  owners  of  capital  or  "  property  affected  by  its 
public  use, "  and  naturally  this  government,  in  the  last 
quarter  of   the  nineteenth   century,   expressed   the 

1  Munn  vs.  Illinois. 


70  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

protest  against  recognizing  the  rights  of  the  partner- 
ship in  property  formed  by  the  public  use  of  the  prop- 
erty and  limited  by  the  common  good.  It  was  a 
gorgeously  simple  machine.  Capital  largely  in  the 
form  of  "property  in  a  public  use"  furnished  money 
which  gave  the  politicians  power.  They  returned 
political  power  to  capital,  which  made  it  more  impor- 
tant in  the  government  than  the  people.  So  for 
twenty  years  we  find  democracy  struggling  with  sub- 
conscious prescience  to  throw  off  her  shackles.  First 
came  the  fight  for  the  secret  ballot,  which  freed 
democracy  from  crass  bribery;  then  came  the  fight 
for  party  reform  —  a  fight  to  make  majorities  and  not 
capital  count  in  election  returns.  The  fight  began  in 
a  demand  that  campaign  contributions  be  publicly 
accounted  for.  Then  the  people  prohibited  corpora- 
tion contributions,  thereby  taking  refined  bribery 
from  politics.  This  drove  money  from  the  ballot 
box  and  made  men  in  majorities  masters  of  elections. 
Simultaneous  with  this  movement  came  another  for 
party  nominations  directly  from  the  people;  for  it 
was  still  necessary  to  smash  to  utter  debris  the  party 
machine  financed  by  the  holders  of  special  privileges; 
i.e.  those  owning  property  affected  by  its  public  use, 
who  vehemently  protested  against  a  public  account- 
ing of  the  profits  of  the  public  partnership  and  re- 


CERTAIN   DEFINITE  TENDENCIES  71 

garded  a  legal  distribution  of  the  common  profits 
in  lower  rates  and  better  service  as  public  plunder. 
And  now  following  the  direct  primary,  which  made 
the  people  and  not  the  aristocracy  of  politics  the 
direct  masters  of  the  public  servants,  is  coming  direct 
legislation  from  the  people. 

With  the  breaking  of  these  shackles  upon  democ- 
racy —  direct  bribery,  party  bribery,  machine  rule, 
and  unresponsive  legislative  control  of  the  states  — 
democracy  is  now  setting  out  on  her  real  mission:  to 
define  the  rights  of  the  owner  and  the  user  of  private 
property  according  to  the  dictates  of  an  enlightened 
public  conscience.  Now  the  shackle  smashing  has 
been  done  and  is  being  done  by  the  states.  But  the 
broader  work  done  by  the  people  after  acquiring 
freedom  in  their  states  has  been  done,  not  only  in 
states,  but  in  cities  and  in  the  federal  government. 
The  work  done  in  the  states  probably  is  most  funda- 
mental; it  affects  more  people  than  the  work  either 
in  the  cities  or  in  the  federal  government.  Property 
as  it  comes  under  state  control  is  largely  capital  in- 
vested in  stocks  and  bonds.  And  the  activities  of  this 
capital  are  practically  all  affected  by  its  public  use. 
So,  speaking  broadly,  all  capital  invested  in  any  state 
is  rapidly  coming  under  that  state's  supervision,  pro- 
tection, and  control. 


72  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

The  methods  of  state  control  of  capital  so  far  as 
they  have  been  evolved  by  the  uses  of  necessity,  gen- 
erally are  three:  first,  restriction,  as  in  the  case  of 
capital  invested  in  industries,  public  utilities,  and 
banks;  second,  division,  by  means  of  taxation,  as  in 
the  case  of  franchises,  licenses,  real  estate,  legacies 
and  (in  rare  cases)  incomes  above  a  certain  sum  from 
any  source;  and  third,  prohibition,  as  in  the  case  of 
capital  invested  in  the  sale  and  manufacture  of  liquor 
as  a  beverage,  capital  invested  in  the  manufacture  of 
impure  food,  and  capital  invested  in  race  track  gam- 
bling or  in  any  business  wherein  the  common  good  de- 
mands that  the  business  stop.  That  the  movement 
is  not  socialistic  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  state  owner- 
ship is  rarely,  if  indeed  ever,  resorted  to  in  the  control 
of  capital.  Municipal  ownership  of  commodities 
and  of  utilities  is  common.  Federal  ownership,  as  in 
the  case  of  post  offices,  is  accepted,  and  it  is  promised 
in  the  case  of  postal  savings  banks,  and  is  to  be  tried 
in  the  case  of  coal  and  oil  and  mineral  lands  reserved 
from  segregation  and  private  ownership;  but  state 
ownership  is  exceptional.  The  present  movement  of 
democracy  is  toward  regulation  and  control  —  not 
toward  ownership.  This  movement  is  distinctly  not 
socialistic,  in  America  at  least.  Democracy  is  trying 
to  give  the  individual  the  widest  latitude  commensu- 


CERTAIN  DEFINITE  TENDENCIES  73 

rate  with  the  common  good.  And  control  is  only  im- 
posed upon  capital  when  its  predatory  activities  affront 
the  awakening  conscience  of  the  people.  The  whole 
movement  is  moral  rather  than  economic.  And  rig- 
orous as  are  the  iron  laws  of  trade,  the  moral  law  will 
bend  them.  For  as  economic  laws  bend  mere  stat- 
utes, so  do  spiritual  laws  change  economic  reckonings. 
So  far  as  statutes  are  concerned,  the  states  of  the 
American  Union  seem  to  be  unanimous  in  agreeing 
that  those  combinations  of  capital  "in  restraint  of 
trade"  called  trusts  shall  be  controlled,  and  the  states 
are  almost  unanimous  in  the  belief  as  expressed  in 
statutes  that  the  railroads  shall  be  controlled.  And 
while  there  are  more  laws  concerning  trusts,  there  is 
more  effective  enforcement  of  the  laws  controlling 
railroads.  For  excepting  West  Virginia,  Delaware, 
Wyoming,  Idaho,  and  Maryland,  every  American  state 
now  has  a  railroad  commission.  Typically  these 
railroad  commissions  are  made  up  of  three  men,  ap- 
pointed by  the  governor  —  though  a  few  states, 
notably  Kansas  and  Missouri,  elect  them.  The 
powers  of  the  commission  typically  are  to  hear  com- 
plaints of  shippers  and  others,  and  to  "fix  and  adjust 
rates  "  thereafter,  and  to  demand  (with  varying  grades 
of  authority  back  of  its  demand)  changes  in  service. 
Typically  the  powers  of  the  state  railroad  commission 


74  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

to  enforce  its  demands,  are  shading  from  suggestion 
and  advice  to  considerable  legal  authority  to  insist 
backed  up  by  penalties  to  be  imposed  upon  disobe- 
dient railroads.  But  the  real  powers  of  the  typical 
state  commission  generally  are  not  tested  under  the 
state  courts,  but  in  the  federal  courts,  where  these 
powers  are  frequently  curtailed. 

Yet  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  railroads,  as  well  as 
other  corporations  generally,  take  serious  litigation  to 
the  federal  courts,  the  state  commissions  are  doing  a 
real  service  to  the  people;  secondary  service,  of  course, 
as  compared  with  the  important  necessary  work  of 
the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission,  but  still  real 
service.  It  may  be  well  to  consider  these  state  com- 
missions in  some  detail.  Of  recent  years  there  has 
been  a  growth  in  two  directions  as  regards  laws  con- 
trolling railroads  by  the  state.  One  tendency  is  to 
give  state  commissioners  the  right  to  adjust  rates 
upon  their  own  motion  —  without  waiting  for  formal 
complaints  from  shippers.  This  power  is  given  to 
the  commissions  of  Mississippi,  Virginia  (where  the 
commission  is  called  the  "corporation  commission")? 
Indiana,  Nebraska,  Kentucky,  Wisconsin,  Arkan- 
sas, Illinois,  Minnesota,  Ohio,  Missouri,  Michigan, 
North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Alabama,  Oregon, 
Washington,    Kansas,    Oklahoma,    Texas,    Georgia, 


CERTAIN  DEFINITE  TENDENCIES  75 

New  York,  Florida,  Montana,  and  Iowa.  This  right 
to  take  up  cases  without  waiting  for  shippers  to  com- 
plain formally  enables  the  commissioners  to  equalize 
rates  in  making  changes,  so  that  by  creating  a  new  rate 
for  one  community  or  commodity  they  do  not  treat 
another  community  or  shipper  unfairly.  It  is  an  im- 
portant power,  and  one  which  railroads  through  their 
lobbyists  in  legislatures  always  resist. 

The  second  marked  tendency  in  state  railroad 
legislation  is  to  give  state  railroad  commissioners 
the  power  to  ascertain  the  actual  physical  valuation 
of  railroads,  and  from  that  actual  physical  valuation 
in  some  measure  to  determine  the  cost  of  service, 
and  to  establish  reasonable  rates  based  upon  the  cost 
of  service  as  well  as  upon  its  value.  Practically  all 
the  state  railroad  commissions  provide  that  a  report 
of  the  annual  business  of  each  railroad  in  a  state  be 
filed  with  a  commission,  and  nearly  all  the  states  pre- 
scribe the  detailed  form  in  which  the  report  shall  be 
made.  Texas  requires  the  railroads  in  that  state  to 
keep  books  in  a  certain  way,  and  these  books  must  be 
open  to  the  railroad  commission  at  all  times.  Thus 
with  the  physical  valuation  and  the  gross  business  of 
a  given  company  before  it,  with  its  labor  account,  its 
interest  account,  its  betterment  account,  and  its 
various  fixed  charges  segregated,  a  state  commission 


76  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

can  get  about  as  closely  to  what  is  indeed  and  in  fact 
a  reasonable  rate,  within  a  state,  as  the  rate-making 
expert,  who  too  frequently  bases  rates  upon  the  value 
rather  than  upon  the  cost  of  service. 

The  states  which  have  empowered  their  railroad 
commissions  to  ascertain  the  physical  value  of  rail- 
roads are  Mississippi,  Virginia  (through  a  corpora- 
tions commission,  which  also  looks  after  assessments), 
Nebraska,  Kentucky,  Wisconsin  (through  its  tax 
commission),  Arkansas,  Minnesota,  Michigan 
(through  its  tax-gathering  machinery),  North  Caro- 
lina, Alabama,  Oregon,  Washington,  Texas,  Montana, 
Kansas,  Oklahoma,  and  Florida.  And  the  states 
which  have  made  an  adequate  appropriation  for  the 
work  of  valuation  are  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Wisconsin, 
Minnesota,  Missouri,  Michigan  (which  is  a  model 
of  its  kind),  North  Carolina,  Alabama,  Oklahoma, 
Florida,  Montana,  and  Texas.  In  many  of  these 
states  the  tax  commissioners  appraise  the  railroads. 
And  the  railroad  commissioners  use  the  appraisement, 
and  it  forms  a  basis  for  getting  at  the  truth  about 
many  rate  controversies. 

Probably  as  a  result  of  this  information  in  the 
hands  of  the  commissions,  and  because  of  the  knowl- 
edge that  it  may  be  accurately  obtained,  the  move- 
ment for  the  two-cent  fare  has  not  been  checked  by 


CERTAIN   DEFINITE  TENDENCIES  77 

the  railroads.  For  now  the  two-cent  fare  prevails  in 
Kansas,  Nebraska,  Michigan,  Illinois,  Indiana,  Min- 
nesota, Ohio,  Georgia,  Connecticut,  West  Virginia; 
and  reduced  fares  prevail  in  Alabama,  North  Caro- 
lina, Missouri,  North  Dakota,  Michigan,  Pennsyl- 
vania, Iowa,  and  Wisconsin.  In  some  of  the  states, 
notably  New  York,  the  reduction  has  been  voluntary; 
but  it  has  been  voluntary  because  in  adjacent  states 
the  fares  had  been  reduced  by  law.  The  people 
have  been  reasonable  in  this  demand  for  the  two-cent 
fare.  They  have  rarely  asked  for  it  except  in  prairie 
states,  where  railroad  grades  are  easy,  and  mainte- 
nance is  not  excessively  high;  or  if  they  have  asked  it 
in  mountainous  regions,  the  regions  have  been  thickly 
settled  and  local  traffic  has  been  profitable.  The  two- 
cent  fare  legislation  has  not  been  either  selfish  or 
visionary.  And  while  the  railroads  are  resisting  it  in 
the  courts,  they  are  resisting  the  principle  of  state  rate 
regulation,  rather  than  the  amount  of  the  rate.  Gen- 
erally speaking,  the  lower  fares  remain  while  the 
litigation  goes  on;  though  in  Arkansas,  where  the 
reduction  was  of  doubtful  equity,  owing  to  the  light 
travel  and  the  high  cost  of  maintenance,  the  railroads 
have  reestablished  their  three-cent  fares. 

Contemporary  with  the  two-cent  fare  movement 
came  the  anti-pass  movement,  and  the  two  move- 


78  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

merits  were  coordinated  in  this:  that  the  abolition 
of  the  pass  enabled  the  railroads  to  collect  additional 
fares  and  thus  to  recover  in  a  small  measure  their 
loss,  occasioned  by  the  reduced  rate.  But  the  anti- 
pass  movement  was  based,  not  on  economics,  but  upon 
politics.  The  movement  was  really  connected  with 
the  growth  of  fundamental  democracy.  For  the  pass 
of  the  politician  gave  him  power.  He  could  run  on 
errands  against  free  government,  and  he  became  by 
reason  of  his  pass  the  political  agent,  not  merely  of 
the  railroad,  but  of  all  the  foes  of  progress  in  the  com- 
munity. Railroad  passes  packed  conventions,  cor- 
rupted legislatures,  colored  the  view  of  administrative 
officers,  and  biased  courts.  The  pass  was  one  of  the 
most  formidable  weapons  of  the  aristocracy  of  politics 
against  the  democracy.  But  by  the  quickening  con- 
science of  the  nation  the  pass  has  been  either  re- 
stricted or  entirely  abolished  in  twenty-five  states, 
save  when  it  is  issued  to  actual  employees  of  railroads. 
The  total  abolition  of  the  pass,  however,  has  been  ac- 
complished generally  in  those  states  which  have  the 
direct  primary  law.  In  the  other  states  it  is  merely 
restricted.  And  the  measure  of  control  the  people 
have  in  a  given  state  may  be  taken  by  looking  at  its 
primary  and  anti-pass  laws.  For  the  abolition  of  the 
pass  and  the  convention  puts  the  public  service  cor- 


CERTAIN  DEFINITE  TENDENCIES  79 

poration  politician  out  of  business,  and  permits  the 
people  to  conduct  their  own  affairs. 

These  four  broad  expressions  of  the  popular  move- 
ment to  control  railroads  come  from  so  many  states 
that  they  may  be  called  typical  of  the  minor  activi- 
ties of  democracy.  Indeed  all  but  the  two-cent  fare 
movement  are  national  in  their  scope,  for  one  of  the 
national  parties  and  both  of  the  candidates  for  Presi- 
dent in  1908  of  the  two  great  parties  indorsed  federal 
legislation  which  will  give  the  Interstate  Commerce 
Commission  power  to  adjust  rates  upon  its  own  mo- 
tion, and  which  will  also  give  the  Interstate  Com- 
merce Commission  an  appropriation  adequate  to 
make  an  appraisement  of  American  railroads  and  use 
the  appraisement  as  part  of  the  data  necessary  for 
establishing  equitable  rates.  Moreover,  President 
Taft's  special  message  of  January  7,  1910,  contained 
the  most  radical  recommendations  for  the  control 
of  capital  in  interstate  commerce  ever  made  in  a 
presidential  message  in  America.  These  recommen- 
dations were  accepted  as  matters  of  course  by  the 
people.  Ten  years  ago  such  radicalism  from  a  Presi- 
dent would  have  paralyzed  the  stock  market.  So 
all  those  attempts  of  democracy  to  control  capital 
engaged  in  interstate  commerce  by  restricting  it  to 
reasonable  rates,  and  to  prohibit  it  from  political  ac~ 


80  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

tivity,  may  be  called  national  movements  expressed 
both  in  the  state  and  federal  government. 

But  in  addition  to  these  national  movements  there 
are  local  movements  of  importance.  For  instance, 
the  New  England  states,  wherein  hauls  are  short  and 
rates  small  if  not  low,  are  not  so  concerned  about  rates 
as  they  are  about  service.  And  in  the  smaller  states 
the  commissions  in  New  England  are  not  empowered 
to  adjust  rates,  but  instead  to  recommend  to  the 
legislature  for  enactment  such  rates  as  the  commission 
thinks  reasonable.  Much  space  is  given  in  the  New 
England  statutes  to  the  regulation  of  grade  crossings; 
much  space  is  given  to  the  relations  between  the  rail- 
roads and  their  employees;  much  attention  is  paid 
to  the  matter  of  stations,  switches,  and  terminals. 
Massachusetts,  which  is  the  model  for  New  England, 
contains  a  most  radical  as  well  as  socialistic  provision 
for  state  ownership  in  the  railroad  law.1 

When  we  consider  that  this  statute  is  reenforced 
by  a  statute  —  common  to  the  Eastern  states  and  a 
number  of  Western  states,  and  one  which  is  urged  upon 
Congress  by  President  Taft — which  limits  the  stock  or 
bond  issues  of  railroads  to  such  as  meet  the  approval 
of  the  commissioners,  and  when  we  further  consider 
that  the  method  of  sale  and  all  the  receipts  of  the  sale 

1  See  Appendix,  p.  254. 


CERTAIN  DEFINITE  TENDENCIES  81 

of  stocks  and  bonds  are  controlled  by  the  commission, 
we  see  the  extent  to  which  the  people  are  going  in 
their  restrictions  of  capital.  Also  —  and  this  is 
important  —  it  should  be  remembered  that  this 
Massachusetts  law  above  quoted  is  not  a  wildcat 
statute  of  a  sagebrush  state,  passed  in  a  corporation- 
baiting  craze;  it  is  a  statute  upon  the  books  of  the 
most  conservative  American  state,  and  most  of  the 
drastic  provisions  of  other  Massachusetts  statutes 
are  duplicated,  where  they  are  not  excelled  in  severity, 
by  the  statutes  of  the  state  of  New  York.  But  Mas- 
sachusetts can  and  does  legislate  upon  the  badges, 
caps,  and  uniforms  of  railroad  employees,  their  hours 
of  service  every  week,  their  employers'  liability,  the 
assumption  of  risks  they  take,  the  condition  of 
their  eyes,  and  the  character  of  their  mutual  in- 
surance. 

Legislation  for  the  benefit  of  employees  is  growing 
in  popularity.  The  fellow-servant  is  not  a  superior 
servant  in  a  score  of  American  states  now;  the  hours 
of  service  of  railroad  employees  are  considered  by  law 
in  many  of  the  Southern  states,  in  the  Dakotas,  North 
Carolina,  Minnesota,  New  York,  Wisconsin,  Massa- 
chusetts, Montana,  and  Missouri ;  while  the  trend  of 
federal  legislation  and  of  recent  federal  judicial  de- 
cisions is  to  protect  employees,  thus  enlarging  the 


82  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

wage  fund.  There  seems  to  be  a  feeling,  as  strong 
and  sure  in  New  York  and  New  England  as  in  the 
South  and  the  West  and  in  the  far  Northwest,  —  a 
feeling  broad  enough  to  be  called  a  national  feeling,  — 
that  too  large  a  share  of  the  gross  earnings  of  American 
railroads  goes  into  interest  charges  and  dividends. 
Much  of  these  interest  charges  and  dividends  are  paid 
upon  what  looks  like  " fictitious  capitalization"  in  the 
light  of  such  information  as  the  people  have  been  able 
to  secure.  That  phrase  "fictitious  capitalization" 
was  coined  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
and,  therefore,  is  not  so  dangerous  as  it  sounds.  And 
so  we  find  in  the  statutes  of  Wisconsin,  Texas,  Okla- 
homa, Massachusetts,  Kansas,  New  York,  Virginia, 
Georgia,  and  Nebraska  provision  made  for  regulating 
or  restricting  the  stock  and  bond  issues  of  railroads; 
and  President  Taft  is  demanding  regulation  and 
restriction  of  stocks  and  bond  issues  not  only  for 
railroads,  but  for  all  concerns  incorporated  under 
federal  charter  laws. 

Among  the  other  activities  of  the  people  in  the  sev- 
eral states  looking  toward  the  restriction  of  capital 
invested  in  railroads  is  one  found  specifically  in  the 
statutes  of  Massachusetts,  Michigan,  Kentucky, 
Florida,  Ohio,  Minnesota,  Nevada,  Mississippi, 
Washington,  Indiana,  Missouri,  Virginia,  Louisiana, 


CERTAIN  DEFINITE  TENDENCIES  83 

Oklahoma,  South  Dakota,  South  Carolina,  Penn- 
sylvania, New  York,  Texas,  Montana,  Georgia, 
Nebraska,  Illinois  and  Iowa,  which  prohibits  railroads 
from  charging  more  for  a  short  haul  than  for  a  long 
haul.  In  all  these  statutes  there  are  reasonable  ex- 
ceptions to  the  rule  and  certain  reservations  as  to  its 
literal  enforcement;  but  the  fact  that  the  statutes  of 
other  states,  by  implication  if  not  specifically,  make 
provision  for  the  same  rule  indicates  rather  a  wide- 
spread belief  in  conservative  states  that  there  is  some 
justice  in  a  rate  per  ton  per  hundred  miles  —  sub- 
feet,  of  course,  to  differences  in  classification.  Michi- 
gan in  enacting  her  maximum  freight  law  has  all  but 
stated  the  principle,  as  also  have  two  of  the  states  in 
in  the  far  South.  And  when  the  railroads  and  the 
people  settle  their  controversy  in  the  federal  courts,  if 
it  is  settled  in  favor  of  the  people,  —  as  it  must  be  set- 
tled inevitably  in  a  democracy,  —  then  it  is  not  un- 
likely that  democracy  may  solve  the  railroad  problem 
equitably  upon  some  such  basis  as  the  rate  per  ton  per 
mile.  Indeed  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission's 
reports  lean  strongly  to  some  such  adjustment  of  rate 
difficulties.  For  it  is  admitted  that  complaints  of 
discrimination  between  individual  shippers  now  are 
being  remedied ;  and  with  the  complaint  as  to  relative 
rates  for  the  same  commodity  between  different  points 


84  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

settled,  the  only  open  question  will  be  the  one  of  classi- 
fication. 

Now,  when  we  turn  to  the  other  wide  field  of  demo- 
cratic activity  in  which  capital  is  being  restricted  by 
the  several  states,  —  the  field  occupied  by  the  control 
and  regulation  of  combinations  in  restraint  of  trade, — 
we  find  that  the  people  of  the  several  states  acting 
independently  have  come  to  a  common  agreement. 
The  anti-trust  laws  of  the  states  are  as  nearly  alike 
as  the  railroad  laws,  and  these  state  anti-trust  laws 
in  many  cases  preceded  the  national  law  and  inspired 
it,  just  as  the  railroad  commission  idea  was  a  state 
idea  before  it  became  national.  But  for  nearly 
a  decade  after  its  enactment  the  anti-trust  law  re- 
mained to  all  practical  ends  a  dormant  idea  both  na- 
tionally and  in  the  states,  and  the  federal  railroad  laws 
remained  almost  dormant  after  enactment;  but  the 
anti-trust  laws  and  the  railroad  laws  woke  up  and  be- 
came active  together.  Then  it  was  found  that  all  the 
state  and  federal  railroad  laws  and  anti-trust  laws 
required  amendment,  and  that  aroused  combat  from 
the  owners  of  private  property  in  public  use.  So 
that  everywhere  in  the  United  States  at  about  the 
same  time  the  struggle  to  restrict  capital  in  public  use, 
whether  that  use  was  in  railroads  or  in  industries, 
became  one  struggle  in  two  parts;  and  the  story  of 


CERTAIN   DEFINITE  TENDENCIES  85 

the  struggle  to  define  the  boundaries  of  public  use  of 
capital  engaged  in  operating  railroads  is  the  more 
interesting  story. 

As  we  have  already  observed  there  are,  however, 
two  other  methods  of  controlling  the  profits  of  capital 
in  public  use  —  one  by  division  through  taxation, 
and  the  other  through  prohibition.  And  the  endeavor 
of  the  people  to  make  capital  in  the  public  use  pay  its 
full  share  for  public  protection  and  for  the  benefits 
of  civilization  makes  an  interesting  record  of  achieve- 
ment by  the  people  through  their  states. 

Thirty  years  ago  we  were  a  nation  of  tax  dodgers. 
To-day  the  iniquities  of  taxation  are  shameful  in 
American  states,  but  not  so  shameful  as  they  were  in 
the  old  days.  During  the  past  ten  years  the  tax  laws 
of  over  half  the  American  states  have  been  changed, 
in  the  hope  that  they  would  be  improved.  The  full 
rendition  law  has  come  into  a  large  number  of  the 
states.  And  with  it  state  tax  commissions  have  been 
established  in  a  wide  group  of  the  more  progress- 
ive American  states.  These  states  are  Pennsylvania, 
New  York,  Indiana,  Kansas,  Wisconsin,  Michigan, 
Virginia,  through  her  corporation  commission;  Mary- 
land and  West  Virginia  through  a  board  of  public  works ; 
Alabama,  Washington,  Oklahoma,  New  Mexico,  North 
and  South  Carolina,  and  Nebraska  through  a  state 


86  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

board  of  equalization.  New  Jersey  has  a  fairly  effec- 
tive system  of  county  boards  working  together,  and 
tax  commissions  have  been  appointed  by  the  legisla- 
ture or  by  the  governor  to  codify  and  revise  and  im- 
prove the  tax  laws  in  Maine,  Missouri,  Vermont, 
Ohio,  and  New  Hampshire.  In  nearly  every  state 
during  the  past  five  years  there  has  been  a  serious 
attempt  in  the  legislature  redeeming  the  pledge  of  a 
dominant  party  to  do  something  to  improve  the  tax 
system.  The  people  have  grown  intolerant  of  its  in- 
justices. They  are  willing  wherever  a  full  rendition 
law  is  enacted  to  give  in  their  property  at  its  full  value ; 
and  where  the  taxes  increase,  there  is  not  as  much  com- 
plaint as  there  would  have  been  twenty  years  ago. 
The  people  earnestly  desire  to  reform  themselves. 
And  they  are  working  naturally  to  whatever  end  they 
may  attain.  For  the  state  tax  commission  is  an  evo- 
lutionary product.  Typically  it  merely  binds  the 
local  state  tax  system  into  a  state  unit.  For  half  a 
century  the  growth  of  railroads,  telegraph,  telephone, 
express,  and  sleeping-car  companies  has  made  it  more 
and  more  imperative  to  have  something  more  than 
the  county  or  township  unit  to  govern  taxation,  for 
properties  extending  over  a  score  of  units  were  subject 
to  a  score  of  different  valuations.  Corruption  fol- 
lowed naturally  in  the  days  when  bribery  began  at  the 


CERTAIN  DEFINITE  TENDENCIES  87 

ballot  box,  and  extended  to  public  servants.  So  in 
most  of  the  states  there  grew  up  a  loose-jointed  state 
system;  generally  it  was  called  the  state  board  of  rail- 
way assessors,  and  in  many  states  there  was  also  a 
state  board  of  equalization.  But  the  members  of 
these  boards  generally  were  state  officers  who  had 
other  duties  and  little  responsibility  for  the  work  of 
assessment,  and  it  was  badly  done;  favoritism  to  the 
public  service  corporations  was  inevitable.  For  the 
corporations  contributed  heavily  to  the  campaign  funds 
of  the  parties,  and  the  party  management  saw  to  it 
that,  for  every  dollar  given  to  the  party,  the  corpora- 
tions got  hundreds  of  dollars  in  reduced  taxes. 

But  this  system  is  disappearing  before  the  stronger 
system  as  exemplified  in  the  tax  commission.  For 
the  tax  commission  is  absolutely  responsible  for  its 
work;  and  it  is  sometimes  elective.  It  has  authority 
to  put  the  valuation  of  land,  of  all  kinds  of  personal 
property,  and  of  railroad  property  upon  exactly  the 
same  basis  all  over  the  state.  Under  the  tax  com- 
mission the  county  assessors  are  organized  and  di- 
rected. And  the  county  assessors  have  direct  charge 
and  authority  over  the  township  assessors,  who  in 
turn  have  charge  of  their  deputies.  Thus  the  system 
has  an  authoritative  head.  And  although  only  a 
third  of  the  states  have  adopted  this  system,  practi- 


88  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

cally  all  of  them  are  working  toward  it.  For  the 
movement  is  new,  but  it  is  growing  rapidly.  Varia- 
tions of  the  system  are  found  in  the  different  states. 
In  South  Carolina,  for  instance,  the  insurance  depart- 
ment has  been  taken  from  the  state  comptroller,  and 
he  has  been  made  in  effect  a  tax  commissioner.  In 
West  Virginia  the  board  of  public  works  is  the  tax 
commission.  In  Virginia  and  a  few  other  Southern 
states  the  evolution  of  the  tax  commission  has  pro- 
gressed with  the  railroad  commission,  and  the  body 
that  makes  rates  for  certain  public  service  corporations 
knows  exactly  what  they  are  worth.  This  system  is 
found  in  a  modified  form  in  Oklahoma.  In  Nebraska 
real  tax  reform  has  been  accomplished  by  the  state 
board  of  equalization,  and  the  next  step  will  be  the 
commission. 

While  the  people  are  working  out  their  tax  system, 
they  have  decided  in  nearly  two  thirds  of  the  states 
that  wealth  does  not  pay  its  adequate  share  of  the 
taxes  under  the  present  system.  So  the  states  have 
begun  to  tax  inheritances.  Some  of  these  inheritance 
tax  laws  are  a  generation  old,  but  most  of  them  are 
new  laws.  The  inheritance  tax  now  is  established  in 
Massachusetts,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Missouri,  Michi- 
gan, Virginia,  Maryland,  North  Carolina,  Tennessee, 
Colorado,  Iowa,  Idaho,  Illinois,  Connecticut,  Wyo- 


CERTAIN  DEFINITE  TENDENCIES  89 

ming,  Kentucky,  Nebraska,  Wisconsin,  Minnesota, 
Arkansas,  West  Virginia,  Oregon,  Washington,  Okla- 
homa, Utah,  North  Dakota,  Montana,  Texas,  New 
Hampshire,  New  Jersey,  Louisiana,  Vermont,  New 
York,  California,  Maine,  Kansas,  Delaware,  South 
Dakota.  Generally  these  inheritance  tax  laws  are 
graduated,  and  do  not  seriously  affect  small  legacies 
to  direct  heirs.  But  they  will  fall  heavily  upon  large 
fortunes  going  to  indirect  heirs.  These  inheritance 
tax  laws  represent  the  instinctive  feeling  of  democracy 
that  all  men  have  a  right  at  the  outset  of  life  to  an 
equal  opportunity  with  all  other  men  to  develop  their 
essential  inequalities.  The  inheritance  tax  laws  are 
intended  to  break  any  crust  of  caste  that  may  form 
in  America. 

The  franchise  tax  is  also  coming  into  the  American 
system  of  direct  taxation.  It  is  generally  a  tax  on  the 
gross  receipts  of  public  utilities  corporations,  and  as 
the  states  have  provided  for  a  system  of  bookkeeping 
for  these  corporations,  the  tax  is  easily  assessable  and 
collected.  Twenty-five  states  have  a  franchise  tax. 
And  in  addition  to  this  North  Carolina,  Wisconsin, 
Virginia,  and  Oklahoma  are  taxing  personal  incomes 
above  a  certain  sum. 

Now,  we  shall  see  in  a  chapter  devoted  to  the 
struggle  of  democracy  with  capital  in  the  courts, 


90  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

how  these  activities  of  democracy  to  restrict  capital 
by  state  control  and  to  divide  capital  by  taxation, 
all  are  going  through  our  courts;  gradually  statutes 
are  changing  into  law.  But  this  change  is  fought 
inch  by  inch  on  the  part  of  capital.  And  the  chief 
bulwark  of  defense  behind  which  property  rights  are 
hiding  is  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States.  That  was  the  amendment 
which  guaranteed  the  negro  his  freedom.  But  it  con- 
tains a  clause  which  provides  that  no  state  shall  de- 
prive a  person  of  his  property  "without  due  process  of 
law."  And  the  puzzle  in  the  courts  is  to  find  out  when 
an  act  of  the  legislature  restricting  the  activities  of 
capital  or  taxing  capital  is  really  "due  process  of 
law."  It  is  a  fine  game  of  political  hide  and  seek; 
but  democracy  has  caught  and  is  catching  so  many  of 
the  hiders,  that  within  a  decade  at  the  most  the  game 
will  be  played  out. 

The  third  method  which  states  are  using  in  the 
control  of  capital  is  prohibition.  In  spite  of  the 
Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  persons  and  corporations  having 
millions  of  dollars  invested  in  many  of  the  states 
are  being  deprived  of  their  property  "without  due 
process  of  law."  The  closing  of  the  race  tracks  in 
Missouri  and  New  York,  which  has  been  followed  by 


CERTAIN  DEFINITE  TENDENCIES  91 

a  slump  in  race-track  gambling  all  over  the  country, 
has  deprived  thousands  of  people  of  property  which 
they  considered  just  as  sacred  as  the  railroad  holders 
of  coal  mines  in  Pennsylvania  considered  their  prop- 
erty, and  probably  with  about  as  much  equity.  And 
when  one  estimates  the  amount  of  property  destroyed 
by  the  growing  sentiment  against  gambling  in  every 
American  state  during  the  ten  years  now  passing,  it 
is  hard  to  realize  that  the  Fourteenth  Amendment 
should  stand  idly  by  and  see  all  this  wrong  done, 
while  it  is  so  active  in  behalf  of  the  public  service 
corporations!  But  the  greatest  destruction  of  prop- 
erty in  the  country  without  due  process  of  law  has 
been  done  to  the  brewery  and  saloon  business. 

The  anti-saloon  sentiment  of  the  nation  seems  to 
have  gone  to  work  about  ten  years  ago,  and  worked 
without  much  result  for  half  a  decade.  But  since 
1904  results  have  been  coming  regularly.  State-wide 
prohibition  now  prevails  in  Kansas,  Alabama,  Ten- 
nessee, Georgia,  Mississippi,  North  Carolina,  Maine, 
North  Dakota,  Oklahoma.  Kansas  adopted  pro- 
hibition in  1880,  but  did  not  enforce  it  rigidly  in  the 
larger  cities  until  1907,  and  Maine  has  galvanized  her 
old  law  into  new  efficiency.  Prohibition  now  has 
abolished  the  saloon  in  a  majority  of  the  counties  in 
Arkansas,  Missouri,  Texas,  Connecticut,  Delaware, 


92  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

Florida,  Illinois,  Indiana,  Iowa,  Kentucky,  Louisiana, 
Nebraska,  New  Hampshire,  Ohio,  Oregon,  South 
Carolina,  Tennessee,  Virginia,  and  West  Virginia. 
And  in  every  one  of  these  states  excepting  New  Hamp- 
shire and  Iowa,  where  prohibitory  laws  were  repealed 
in  1903,  there  is  a  strong  movement  for  state- wide  pro- 
hibition, indorsed  more  or  less  definitely  by  one  of  the 
two  ruling  parties.  In  the  election  of  1908  the  Anti- 
saloon  League  made  gains  in  New  York,  Illinois, 
South  Carolina,  Washington,  Idaho,  and  Ohio.  The 
movement  is  strong  in  southern  California,  and  is 
moving  rapidly  up  the  coast.  In  Colorado  the  saloon 
has  been  abolished  from  ninety-three  towns  within 
the  past  two  years.  In  Massachusetts  in  five  years 
there  has  been  a  gain  of  one  hundred  and  ten  towns 
for  the  anti-saloon  territory.  In  Michigan  there  are 
now  eleven  prohibition  counties  and  seven  hundred 
prohibition  towns,  as  against  two  counties  and  four 
hundred  towns  five  years  ago.  In  Minnesota  five 
years  have  seen  the  prohibition  towns  grow  from  four 
hundred  to  one  thousand  six  hundred  and  eleven.  In 
New  Jersey,  where  there  has  been  a  warm  contest  for 
four  years,  the  temperance  people  have  secured  Sun- 
day closing.  And  a  state-wide  campaign  for  county 
prohibition  is  waging  in  Pennsylvania. 
The  movement  against  the  saloon  is  gaining  head- 


CERTAIN  DEFINITE  TENDENCIES  93 

way  in  every  American  state.  And  sentiment  now 
differs  from  sentiment  thirty  years  ago;  there  is 
little  emotionalism  in  this  movement.  It  is  subject 
to  few  reactions.  The  people  seem  to  feel  that  the 
saloon  is  a  lawbreaker,  that  it  is  a  business"  extrava- 
gance, and  that  it  corrupts  politics,  and  keeps  the 
people  from  accomplishing  other  ends  of  good  govern- 
ment. Hence  capital  invested  in  the  liquor  business 
is  not  restricted,  as  capital  invested  in  public  service 
corporations,  not  divided,  as  all  capital  is  divided 
through  the  tax  laws  of  the  state,  but  destroyed  with- 
out due  process  of  law,  and  without  recourse  or  dam- 
ages from  the  state.  And  as  the  railroad  laws  of  the 
states  have  been  epitomized  in  the  national  laws,  and 
as  the  growing  conviction  of  the  states  that  property 
should  be  further  taxed  has  found  a  national  voice  in 
the  declarations  of  President  Roosevelt  and  Mr.  Taft 
and  Mr.  Bryan  for  income  taxes  and  inheritance  taxes 
on  the  federal  statutes,  so  the  revolt  against  the  sa- 
loon has  found  its  echo  in  the  demand  for  a  national 
law  restricting  the  interstate  shipment  of  liquor  into 
states  wherein  the  sale  of  liquor  as  a  beverage  is 
prohibited. 

Now,  as  has  been  said,  all  of  these  activities  of  de- 
mocracy through  the  several  states  are  met  with  oppo- 
sition from  the  federal  courts.     If,  on  the  one  hand,  the 


94  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

unanimity  of  the  people  in  the  states  indicates  that 
they  are  acting  under  a  common  impulse,  drawing 
them  to  a  common  goal,  on  the  other  hand,  the  re- 
markable similarity  of  opinion  against  these  demo- 
cratic reforms  from  certain  federal  courts,  widely  sepa- 
rated geographically  and  found  here  and  there  all 
over  the  nation,  proves  that  the  aristocracy  of  capital 
is  as  strongly  united  by  instinct  as  is  the  democracy. 
But  curiously  those  courts  that  are  reactionary  in 
their  tendencies  are  blind.  Those  who  serve  capital 
also  are  blind.  They  do  not  see  that  this  gradual 
restriction  of  property  rights  follows  the  gradual  re- 
striction of  the  rights  of  capital  in  elections,  in  con- 
ventions, and  in  legislatures.  In  the  preceding 
chapter  we  saw  the  growth  of  democracy.  In  this 
chapter  we  see  the  restrictions  of  capital.  As  the 
rights  of  men  enlarge,  the  rights  of  property  in  so 
far  as  they  are  antagonistic  to  human  rights  are 
clipped.  It  would  seem  that  the  conflicting  rights 
may  produce  a  serious  clash.  It  is  evident  that 
whatever  clash  there  may  be  must  first  come  in  the 
courts.  And  as  matters  now  stand  the  courts  may 
seem  organized  to  protect  property.  To  one  who 
has  little  faith  in  American  institutions,  the  situation 
may  seem  critical.  But  those  who  have  faith  in  our 
institutions  see  no  real  cause  for  alarm.     They  do 


CERTAIN  DEFINITE  TENDENCIES  95 

not  believe  that  the  liberties  of  the  people  will  suffer. 
Property  in  public  use  "must  to  the  extent  of  that 
interest  submit  to  be  controlled  by  the  public  for  the 
common  good,"  and  taxed  "for  the  common  good" 
and  prohibited  "for  the  common  good." 

"In  the  threatened  clash  between  democracy  and 
the  courts,  there  is  but  one  outcome.  Of  course,  for 
the  moment,  the  courts  stand  as  the  national  cham- 
pions of  individual  and  property  rights.  But  it 
should  never  be  forgotten  that  in  truly  democratic 
countries,  the  judges  are  chosen  by  the  people  directly, 
or  through  the  medium  of  selected  executives;  so 
that  this  condition  is  not  necessarily  an  enduring  one. 
The  popular  will,  when  persistently  bent  upon  a 
definite  goal,  is  bound  to  prevail  in  the  end.  In  the 
best  interests  of  conservatism,  therefore,  the  safest 
course  for  the  judiciary  will  be  not  flatly  to  dam  the 
course  of  public  opinion  when  once  clearly  defined, 
lest  a  flood  sweeping  all  before  it  result.  That  hap- 
pened in  the  case  of  our  Civil  War.  The  true  function 
of  the  courts  should  be  to  hold  back  the  impending 
waters  until  the  issue  is  clear,  and  thenceforth  to  so 
shape  or  divert  the  current  of  affairs  that  both  the 
individual  and  the  public  welfare  may  interact  upon 
one  another,  to  the  good  of  both." 

Now,  these  words,  however  radical  they  may  seem, 
are  not  from  a  rabble  rouser.  They  are  from  Mr. 
William  Z.  Ripley,1  professor  of  economics  at  Harvard 
University.     And  the  exhortation  of  these  words  to 

1  "American  Railway  Problems,"  by  William  Z.  Ripley,  Ginn& 
Co.,  Introduction,  p.  xxiv. 


96  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

patience,  under  which  the  nation  may  grow  in  grace 
as  it  submits  for  a  time  to  palpable  injustice,  is  not 
the  best  authority  we  have  for  hope  that  in  the 
end  democracy  will  triumph.  For  is  it  not  written, 
"Blessed  be  the  meek,  for  they  shall  inherit  the 
earth"? 


CHAPTER  V 

PROGRESS   IN   AMERICAN   CITIES 

During  the  early  years  of  this  century  two  men 
living  in  a  great  city  of  the  Southwest  epitomized 
so  exactly  much  of  the  good  and  most  of  the 
bad  in  our  municipal  life  that  the  story  of  these 
men  should  be  set  down  here.  For  the  story 
in  many  ways  is  the  parable  of  politics  in  the 
great  cities  of  the  land.  One  man  was  rich.  He 
had  family.  His  father  was  a  personage  in  the 
state  and  in  the  nation  forty  years  ago.  The  other 
man  came  up  from  the  people.  He  was  no  one  in 
particular.  The  rich  man  kept  out  of  politics;  he 
was  in  business.  He  was  a  pillar  of  society.  The 
poor  man  went  into  politics,  perhaps  with  the  idea 
that  some  day  he  might  become  a  pillar  of  society. 
He  went  to  the  common  council  in  his  city  for  the 
glory  of  it.  To  go  he  made  a  journey  to  the  city  boss 
and  asked  for  the  right  to  be  a  councilman.  A  city 
boss  always  helps  men  who  are  in  politics  for  the  honor 
it  brings.  And  after  the  poor  man  had  been  in  the 
council  for  a  time,  he  found  —  did  this  common  coun- 

h  97 


98  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

cilman  —  that  to  get  results,  to  get  favors  for  his 
ward,  he  would  have  to  tie  up  with  the  "combine." 
And  the  boss  cinched  up  the  girth  of  his  control  on 
that  common  councilman  two  holes  when  the  com- 
mon councilman  joined  the  gang.  Then  when  the 
boss  fixed  it  so  that  a  little  money  might  be  distributed 
among  the  faithful,  the  common  councilman  accepted 
the  common  practice  and  took  his  share.  And  the 
other  man,  the  pillar  of  society,  the  rich  man,  knew 
what  had  been  done  by  the  boss.  For  part  of  the 
money  the  boss  was  distributing  came  from  funds 
which  the  rich  man  was  guarding.  He  knew  how 
franchises  were  bought,  for  his  clients  and  friends 
were  in  the  market.  But  it  came  to  pass,  when  things 
reached  their  worst,  that  the  pillar  of  society  grew 
disgusted  with  the  miserable  business.  And  when  the 
member  of  the  common  council  heard  a  great  orator 
tell  of  deeds  upon  the  battlefield  of  Gettysburg,  the 
councilman  rose  while  the  band  played  the  Star- 
Spangled  Banner,  and  said,  as  his  eyes  rilled  and  his 
voice  choked :  ' '  Oh,  if  I  could  only  die  for  my  country ! ' ' 
And  then  the  crash  came.  Arrests  for  bribing  and  ac- 
cepting bribes  were  made.  Whereupon  the  prose- 
cuting attorney  began  to  get  anonymous  letters, 
faultlessly  typed,  telling  him  what  witnesses  to  sum- 
mon, what  questions  to  ask  them,  and  in  general  how 


PROGRESS  IN   AMERICAN  CITIES  99 

to  get  at  the  truth.  Every  day  came  these  letters, 
and  the  thieves  in  the  city,  big  and  little,  were  in  con- 
sternation at  the  acumen  of  the  district  attorney. 
The  district  attorney  never  fathomed  the  mystery 
of  his  anonymous  friend's  identity.  But  he  found 
that  the  information  invariably  was  accurate.  So 
the  district  attorney  followed  the  blind  lead  and  got 
results.  He  knew  that  some  one  was  aspiring  beyond 
his  courage,  that  some  one  saw  the  sin  of  bribery, 
that  some  man,  apparently  an  educated  man,  ob- 
viously a  man  high  in  financial  and  social  circles,  was 
holding  out  a  life  line  to  the  people.  And  then  one 
day  the  man  who  had  wept  for  a  chance  to  die  for 
his  country  fled  from  his  country  to  a  foreign  land, 
in  fear  of  a  prison ;  and  the  pillar  of  society  died  by 
his  own  hand,  a  thief  who  had  stolen  |the  funds  of 
widows  and  orphans.  The  day  the  rich  man  died  the 
anonymous  letters  stopped.  That  was  America  in  the 
three  decades  that  followed  the  Civil  War:  aspiration, 
ignorance,  and  greed;  aspiration  which  never  saw  that 
heroism  means  personal  sacrifice;  ignorance  of  the 
great  truth  that  the  sin  of  one  brings  suffering  to  all, 
and  greed  —  common  raw  greed  for  wealth  and  power 
and  position.  And  there  we  were  in  the  seventies, 
eighties  and  nineties  in  our  great  cities,  cheering  the 
flag,  robbing  our  neighbors,  and  selling  our  votes  to 


100      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

mammon  in  the  ballot  box,  in  the  common  council, 
and  in  the  directorates  of  public  service  corporations. 
And  whatever  progress  our  American  cities  have  made 
has  been  made  in  giving  our  aspirations  a  practical 
turn,  through  the  conquest  of  the  common  ignorance 
and  the  common  greed  of  the  multitude.  For  the 
rich  were  as  ignorant  of  duty  to  the  city  as  the  poor, 
and  the  poor  were  as  greedy  in  their  relation  to  the 
common  city  government  as  the  rich.  The  pillar  of 
society,  a  rich  man,  aspired  to  help  the  people  reform 
their  city;  but  he  was  not  willing  to  reform  himself. 
The  member  of  the  common  council,  a  poor  man,  was 
willing  to  help  the  people  upon  the  battlefield,  but  was 
unwilling  to  restrain  his  own  greed;  each  was  dumb 
when  his  conscience  called  upon  him  to  repent  of  his 
own  shortcomings.  Greed  killed  them  both,  and 
so  "the  dead  steered  by  the  dumb  went  upward 
with  the  flood."  And  a  third  of  a  century  passed 
while  we  sighed  at  the  iniquity  of  our  municipal  gov- 
ernments and  went  on  plundering  one  another. 

Things  began  to  grow  better  when  in  each  city  a 
group  of  men  appeared,  sufficiently  large  and  suffi- 
ciently wise,  willing  to  put  into  the  various  campaigns 
something  that  was  evidently  not  self-seeking;  fol- 
lowing their  example  the  mass  of  the  voters  put  some- 
thing besides  self-seeking  into  the  ballot  box.     In  just 


PROGRESS  IN   AMERICAN  CITIES  101 

such  a  per  cent  as  the  people  put  in  self-sacrifice 
have  they  taken  out  good  government.  For  the  ig- 
norance and  greed  which  corrupt  our  cities  are  complex 
and  diversified.  There  is  the  igr.oranec  of  illiteracy  — 
the  smallest  of  the  evils;  there' is  the  ignorance  of 
misunderstanding  of  the  weight  and  import  of  issues 
and  the  ignorance  of  the  major  faults  and  virtues  of 
men  —  a  secondary  evil,  easily  eradicated;  and  there 
is  the  big  primal  evil  of  ignorance  as  it  exists  in  party 
bias,  class  consciousness,  and  caste  feeling.  And  as  for 
the  common  greed,  it  is  expressed  in  the  greed  of  the 
voter  for  personal  profit  or  personal  power,  whether 
that  power  or  profit  be  manifest  in  the  nod  of  the  pre- 
cinct policeman  or  the  franchise  for  a  lighting  plant; 
the  common  greed  is  expressed  in  the  greed  of  the 
politician,  whether  it  is  for  jobs  for  his  supporters,  or 
bribes  for  his  vote;  and  the  common  greed  is  ex- 
pressed by  the  capitalist,  whether  in  his  desire  to 
build  a  coal  cellar  under  his  sidewalk  or  to  steal  a  sub- 
way. That  is  the  problem  of  municipal  government 
in  America,  whether  in  New  York,  San  Francisco, 
New  Orleans,  Cleveland,  Chicago,  Galveston,  or 
Portland,  whether  in  the  large  cities  or  in  the  country 
towns  —  it  is  one  problem,  the  task  of  clearing  away 
ignorance  and  fettering  greed. 

And  what  has  been  done  with  the  problem?     To 


102      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

begin  with,  of  course,  there  are  the  public  schools. 
"We  spend  more  money,"  writes  the  city  clerk  of 
Cleveland,  "in  educating  our  children  than  we  spend 
in  ail  tfie  other  departments  of  the  city  government 
combined."  And  the  case  of  Cleveland,  which  spends 
more  than  half  of  its  municipal  income  in  paying  for 
schools,  is  duplicated  in  the  cities,  big  and  little,  all 
over  America.  Schools  and  playgrounds  and  parks 
and  libraries,  which  are  found  in  more  or  less  pro- 
fusion now  wherever  ten  thousand  American  people 
are  congregated,  must  do  their  work  of  educating  the 
masses  in  primary  knowledge  of  the  fundamental 
facts  of  municipal  government  before  the  higher 
classes  in  aesthetics  may  be  profitably  organized  in 
civic  beauty.  It  is  self-evident  that  if  America  is  to 
clear  away  ignorance  in  the  cities,  first  the  people 
must  be  taught  to  read  and  be  given  times  and  places 
for  reflection  upon  what  they  read,  and  they  must 
have  reliable  facts. 

And  reliable  facts  as  to  the  cost  of  city  government 
in  America  are  just  what  the  people  have  not  had. 
Municipal  bookkeeping  has  been  miserably  done. 
The  blunders  and  the  crimes  of  politicians  have  been 
hidden  in  ledgers  and  daybooks.  Only  an  expert 
could  get  at  the  truth  about  the  cost  of  administration 
in  any  one  American  city,  and  the  truth  about  the 


PROGRESS  IN   AMERICAN  CITIES  103 

comparative  cost  of  municipal  administration  has 
been  as  little  understood  as  the  canals  on  Mars.  But 
within  the  five  years  last  past,  a  widespread  feeling 
has  manifested  itself  in  the  country  that  uniformity 
of  municipal  accounts  was  needed.  New  York, 
Boston,  Baltimore,  and  Chicago  have  adopted  in  part 
the  schedules  prepared  by  the  National  Municipal 
League  for  the  keeping  of  municipal  accounts,  and  the 
states  of  Ohio,  Massachusetts,  Iowa,  and  Wyoming 
have  passed  laws  requiring  the  cities  in  these  states 
to  adopt  a  uniform  system  of  municipal  accounts. 
The  adoption  of  uniform  accounting  may  not  seem 
heroic.  It  is  not  a  cause  upon  which  to  appeal  to  the 
passions  of  the  populace;  and  yet  here  is  what  hap- 
pened: In  July,  1908,  the  commissioners  of  accounts 
handed  to  the  mayor  of  New  York  the  report  of  their 
findings.  Before  frost  one  borough  president  had 
fled  under  fire,  one  had  been  removed  by  the  governor, 
a  third  had  resigned,  a  fourth  had  been  accused  of 
malfeasance  in  office  more  serious  than  is  charged 
against  the  other  four,  and  one  of  the  five  remained. 
And  the  office  of  borough  president  is  one  of  as  great 
dignity  and  power  as  is  the  office  of  governor  in  a  con- 
siderable minority  of  our  American  states.  A  research 
of  municipal  accounts  similar  to  that  in  New  York 
was  made  in  Boston  and  the  revelations  shocked  the 


104  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

city.  The  accountant  of  the  Good  Government  League 
has  shown  where  the  city  is  losing  $100,000  a  year  on 
coal  contracts;  where  a  loan  of  $300,000  for  the  ex- 
tension of  water  mains  was  unnecessary ;  that  a  loan 
bill  of  $1,584,500  passed  by  the  city  council  contained 
items  amounting  to  $536,000  that  were  not  only  un- 
necessary, but  were  so  objectionable  that  they  should 
be  repealed.  The  report  showed  that  $40,000  a  year 
may  be  saved  in  one  city  department  without  loss  of 
efficiency,  and  that  contracts  have  been  let  and  sup- 
plies purchased,  without  competitive  bidding,  at 
prices  ranging  from  twenty-five  per  cent  to  one 
hundred  per  cent  more  than  the  prices  of  the  market. 
The  Massachusetts  Bureau  of  Municipal  Accounts  — 
the  first  of  its  kind  in  the  United  States  —  seems  to 
be  the  forerunner  of  similar  activities  in  many  states, 
for  the  state  leagues  of  cities,  which  are  organizing  all 
over  the  country,  are  demanding  it,  and  their  demands 
will  not  long  go  unheeded.  No  other  single  move- 
ment in  American  municipal  reform  promises  so  much 
as  this  movement  for  uniform  accounts.  For  with  its 
promise  it  has  brought  the  guarantee  of  accomplish- 
ment wherever  it  has  been  used.  The  ignorance  of 
misinformation  and  misunderstanding,  more  than  il- 
literacy, binds  the  ignorance  of  partisan  prejudice 
and  class  or  caste  consciousness  upon  the  people,  be- 


PROGRESS  IN   AMERICAN  CITIES  105 

cause  ignorance  is  not  the  inability  to  read  and  write. 
There  is  one  ignorance  of  the  rich  and  another  of  the 
poor  and  still  another  ignorance  of  the  average  man. 
And  while  schools  and  playgrounds  and  swimming 
pools  and  libraries  and  parks  and  newspapers  may  do 
much  to  relieve  the  ignorance  of  the  poor,  and  while 
perhaps  colleges  and  books  and  indictments  and  presi- 
dents' messages  and  jury  verdicts  may  do  something 
to  cure  the  profound  ignorance  of  the  rich,  understand- 
able municipal  accounting  must  afford  the  most  useful 
information  to  the  average  man  who  desires  to  act 
for  the  good  of  all  in  his  relation  to  his  city.  And  in 
the  struggle  of  democracy  to  define  its  relations  with 
capital  and  make  them  equitable,  the  greatest  danger 
to  democracy  is  ignorance.  Democracy  is  strong 
enough.  It  is  willing  enough.  But  it  must  know 
how  to  proceed. 

Naturally  enough  we  find  the  influences  which 
have  begun  the  work  of  securing  uniform  municipal 
accounting  in  American  cities  have  not  stopped  there. 
These  same  influences  have  pushed  the  idea  so  far 
that  among  those  interested  in  municipal  govern- 
ment the  idea  of  uniform  accounts  is  becoming  a 
national  idea,  and  they  have  also  been  at  work  for 
ten  or  fifteen  years  trying  to  relieve  the  third  and 
deepest  form  of  ignorance  in  our  cities  —  that  of  party 


106      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

bias  and  class  consciousness.  During  the  past  five 
years  the  leaven  has  been  multiplying  marvelously. 
There  are  three  strong  organizations  devoted  to  the 
betterment  of  municipal  affairs.  There  is  the  Ameri- 
can Civic  Association,  the  American  Municipal  League, 
and  the  League  of  American  Municipalities.  Supple- 
mentary to  these  there  are,  in  half  a  dozen  states,  state 
municipal  leagues.  Wisconsin  has  one  comprising  over 
seventy  of  her  cities  and  towns.  Iowa  has  one  of  the 
strongest  leagues  in  the  country  —  the  first  league  to 
ask  the  state  legislature  to  establish  a  state  system  of 
accounting.  Illinois  has  a  league,  and  the  municipal 
ownership  idea,  which  is  just  now  particularly  domi- 
nant in  Indiana,  finds  its  expression  in  a  similar  or- 
ganization. Pennsylvania  and  Virginia  cities  are 
organized  by  states,  and  through  their  leagues  know 
much  of  the  comparative  cost  of  municipal  utilities 
and  commodities.  So  the  American  cities,  though 
remote  and  though  as  different  as  New  Orleans  and 
Boston,  know  of  one  another's  progress,  and  through 
the  adoption  of  uniform  systems  of  accounting,  the 
cities  are  acquiring  valuable  information  as  to  com- 
parative cost  of  light,  water,  transportation,  power, 
wharf  rates,  sewage  and  garbage  disposal,  paving, 
the  care  of  the  infirm  —  physically,  mentally,  and 
morally.    Thus  by  reason  of  the  state  leagues  which 


PROGRESS  IN  AMERICAN  CITIES  107 

are  federated  into  the  larger  national  leagues,  there 
is  a  growing  body  of  voters  in  every  city  that  knows 
the  truth  about  municipal  government  in  so  far  as  the 
truth  may  be  known  through  actual  practice  under 
modern  conditions  in  this  American  government. 
The  National  Municipal  League,  which  has  its  head- 
quarters in  Philadelphia,  was  organized  in  1894  with 
less  than  a  hundred  members.  It  now  has  over 
1500  individual  members,  and  150  affiliated  organiza- 
tions, which  have  about  150,000  members.  As  the 
League  has  grown  in  strength  it  has  gathered  to  it 
commercial  organizations.  It  now  works  with  the 
Merchants'  Association  of  San  Francisco,  with  the 
Cleveland  Chamber  of  Commerce,  with  the  Pitts- 
burg Chamber  of  Commerce,  and  with  the  Indian- 
apolis Merchants'  Association.  A  typical  case  of  the 
trend  of  the  average  citizen  away  from  partisan  bias 
and  toward  municipal  reform  is  found  in  the  Mer- 
chants' Association  of  Indianapolis.  It  was  organ- 
ized, as  most  such  organizations  are  organized,  to  go 
junketing  around  its  commercial  territory  with  a 
baggage  car  full  of  provender,  drumming  up  trade  for 
Indianapolis.  Then  it  took  up  the  matter  of  organiz- 
ing a  credit  system,  and  established  local  commercial 
ratings.  Finding  business  injured  by  an  epidemic 
of  smallpox,  it  took  a  hand  in  the  suppression  of 


108      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

smallpox.  That  brought  it  into  city  affairs.  Then 
it  secured  the  elevation  of  railroad  tracks,  and  with 
its  own  capital  built  a  system  of  heating  and  lighting 
for  the  business  portion  of  the  town.  Gradually  it 
edged  into  municipal  affairs,  and  a  few  years  ago  it 
found  that  its  city  and  county  governments  were  so 
incompetently  and  scandalously  managed  that  the 
grand  jury  was  called,  and  the  Merchants'  Association 
to-day  has  a  municipal  programme.  Incidentally  the 
usual  list  of  indictments,  fugitives  from  justice,  and 
resignations  from  office  followed  its  summer's  work. 
And  the  chief  item  on  its  programme  is  a  new  system 
of  city  and  county  accounts  —  to  be  uniform  all  over 
Indiana.  The  path  to  glory  leads  but  to  the  ledger  — 
when  one  begins  to  reform  a  city,  whether  in  Indiana 
or  Massachusetts  or  Iowa  or  California. 

The  League  of  American  Municipalities  is  dis- 
tinctly a  different  organization  from  the  American 
Municipal  League.  The  membership  of  the  League 
of  American  Municipalities  generally  is  confined  to 
city  officers.  Its  problems  are  problems  of  adminis- 
tration. It  looks  around  at  existing  conditions  rather 
than  ahead  at  probable  conditions.  In  the  League  of 
Municipalities  are  a  hundred  and  fifty  cities  in  the 
United  States  and  Canada,  among  them  being  New 
York,   Baltimore,   Chicago,   Buffalo,   New  Orleans, 


PROGRESS  IN   AMERICAN  CITIES  109 

Cincinnati,  St.  Louis,  and  San  Francisco.  Its  work 
is  intensely  practical,  and  is  needed  to  supplement  the 
Municipal  League.  The  two  organizations  work  to- 
gether without  friction.  And  they  have  in  common 
with  all  municipal  organizations,  whether  national  or 
state,  a  broad,  nonpartisan  outlook  upon  their  prob- 
lems. For  the  strongest  note  in  all  of  this  movement 
toward  better  city  government  is  for  independent 
political  action  by  citizens.  The  separation  of  munic- 
ipal and  federal  elections  or  state  elections  was  gen- 
erally accomplished  about  the  time  that  the  nation 
acquired  the  secret  ballot.  And  gradually  the  party 
organization  in  American  cities  is  being  overthrown, 
so  far  as  municipal  voting  is  concerned.  If  the  boss 
and  his  financier  can  afford  to  operate  in  both  parties 
in  city  administration,  men  who  oppose  the  boss  and 
his  master  feel  that  they  can  afford  to  follow  their 
example.  So  we  have  in  Iowa  what  is  known  as  the 
Des  Moines  plan,1  of  city  government  by  commission. 
In  the  twenty-seven  American  states  which  have 
authorized  the  adoption  of  the  commission  form  of 
city  government  sixty  cities  now  have  taken  steps  to 
operate  under  this  system.  The  growth  of  the  com- 
mission form  of  government  has  been  so  rapid  that 
it  has  befuddled  the  politicians.  And  the  provisions 
1  See  Appendix,  p.  263. 


110  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

for  government  under  the  Des  Moines  plan  of  com- 
mission government  are  so  radical  that  the  city  poli- 
tician of  the  old  school  finds  his  occupation  gone  as 
soon  as  the  new  plan  is  in  operation.  Briefly  its  pro- 
visions are  for  five  commissioners  for  a  city  of  the  first 
class;  each  commissioner  is  elected  by  a  direct  vote  of 
the  people,  and  his  name  is  put  on  the  election  ballot 
after  a  nonpartisan  primary,  in  which  ward  lines  are 
abolished;  each  commissioner  has  full  administrative 
responsibility  for  some  particular  branch  of  the  city 
government,  and  has  absolute  power;  but  each  com- 
missioner is  under  the  recall;  that  means  that  if  he 
does  not  use  his  great  power  wisely,  the  people  have 
the  right  to  take  him  out  of  his  office  during  his  term; 
the  legislative  branch  of  the  city  government  is  con- 
ferred on  the  five  commissioners,  subject  to  a  referen- 
dum veto  by  the  people,  if  the  action  of  the  commis- 
sioners is  objectionable;  and  more  than  this,  the  people 
have  the  right  to  initiate  ordinances  for  the  council 
to  pass,  and  no  franchises  may  be  given  without  re- 
ferring the  franchise  ordinance  to  the  people  for  rati- 
fication. If  this  movement  toward  fundamental 
democracy  in  our  cities  is  not  checked  within  ten 
years,  —  if  it  keeps  growing  as  it  has  grown  during 
the  two  years  last  past, — it  will  be  the  form  of  govern- 
ment under  which  a  majority  of  the  city  dwellers  of 


PROGRESS  IN  AMERICAN  CITIES  111 

America  will  be  living.  Incidentally  in  passing  one 
may  see  hope  not  merely  for  the  cities  in  this  move- 
ment. For  with  a  large  portion  of  the  American 
people  living  in  the  cities  under  the  referendum  and 
the  recall,  it  is  not  likely  that  those  outside  of  cities 
will  rest  until  they  also  have  these  weapons  of  democ- 
racy. If  the  cure  for  the  ills  of  democracy  is  more 
democracy,  the  American  people  are  in  a  fair  way  to 
a  cure  within  the  next  ten  years. 

In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  Bos- 
ton, which  is  abreast  with  New  York  in  the  adopting 
of  a  municipal  accounting  system,  is  rather  ahead  of 
New  York  in  considering  the  commission  plan  of  gov- 
ernment. For  Boston  has  officially  investigated  the 
Des  Moines  plan  with  great  care,  and  most  of  its  es- 
sential features  have  been  adopted. 

The  following  cities  are  now  under  the  commission 
form  of  government  more  or  less  like  the  Des  Moines 
plan: 

California:  Berkeley,  San  Diego,  Riverside  and 
Los  Angeles  (considerably  modified);  Colorado: 
Colorado  Springs  and  Grand  Junction;  Iowa:  Des 
Moines,  Cedar  Rapids,  Keokuk,  and  Burlington; 
Kansas:  Topeka,  Parsons,  Coffeyville,  Leavenworth, 
Wichita,  Independence,  Hutchinson,  Anthony,  Iola, 
Emporia,  Newton,  Pittsburg,  Abilene,  Wellington, 


112       THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

and  Kansas  City;  Missouri:  St.  Joseph;  Massachu- 
setts :  Haverhill,  Gloucester,  Chelsea,  and  Boston;  New 
York:  Buffalo  and  Mount  Vernon,  where  the  people 
have  voted  to  adopt  it,  but  it  must  be  ratified  by  the 
legislature;  Idaho:  Boise  and  Lewiston;  North 
Dakota:  Minot,  Bismarck,  and  Mandan;  South  Da- 
kota: Sioux  Falls;  Oklahoma,  Tulsa,  Enid,  Ardmore; 
Tennessee:  Etewah,  Memphis,  Bristol,  Clarksville, 
Richard  City;  Texas:  Galveston,  Houston,  Palestine, 
Waco,  Ft.  Worth,  Austin,  El  Paso,  Dallas,  Dennison, 
San  Antonio,  Greenville,  Sherman,  Beaumont;  North 
Carolina:  Charlotte;  Washington:  Tacoma. 

The  referendum,  however,  is  not  peculiar  to  the 
Des  Moines  plan.  More  than  half  the  better  class 
of  American  cities  now  have  it  in  some  form  or  other. 
Most  franchises  and  bond  issues  in  American  cities 
are  now  submitted  to  the  people  before  the  franchises 
and  bond  issues  become  legal.  The  old  days  when  the 
boss  could  sell  a  franchise  are  passing.  And  where 
the  people  vote  upon  such  matters  they  are  not  guided 
by  parties.  They  are  not  blinded  by  ignorance.  For 
the  responsibility  of  power  comes  to  them  —  even  in 
the  wards  where  illiteracy  is  the  highest,  —  and  the 
people  act  with  good  sense  and  a  feeling  of  equity 
which  is  the  endowment  of  the  Teutonic  man  wherever 
he  is  found. 


PROGRESS  IN   AMERICAN  CITIES  113 

The  effect  of  this  growth  of  democratic  participa- 
tion in  city  affairs  has  been  felt  by  capital.  It  is 
said  by  those  who  have  their  eyes  upon  the  country's 
bond  market  that  as  it  stands  to-day,  no  franchise  can 
be  framed  that  the  people  will  vote  for  which  bond 
buyers  will  take.  This  of  course  is  merely  a  saying. 
But  it  has  an  element  of  truth  in  it.  A  short-term 
franchise,  with  strict  provisions  for  regulation  of 
rates,  and  unequivocal  provisions  for  first-class  serv- 
ice, translated  into  commercial  terms,  means  that 
the  bond  issue  will  be  only  large  enough  to  cover  the 
physical  value  of  the  property  in  question,  as  the 
people  having  the  power  of  rate  regulation  will  de- 
mand rates  based  pretty  nearly  upon  the  actual 
value  of  the  property.  So  the  promoter's  profit  in 
franchise  transactions  is  passing  with  the  boss's 
power  to  sell  franchises.  The  referendum  is  the  eco- 
nomic as  well  as  the  social  manifestation  of  the  rise 
of  the  common  people.  But  it  does  not  spell  social- 
ism, nor  the  abolition  of  capital.  If  the  bond  trader 
cannot  make  the  promoter's  profit  on  bond  sales,  under 
the  referendum,  always  capital  honestly  seeking  invest- 
ment can  find  it  in  buying  municipal  bonds  issued 
to  pay  for  the  municipal  ownership  of  the  utilities 
which  the  people  will  construct  or  buy  for  themselves, 
even  if  the  promoter  fails  to  float  his  proposition. 


114      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

In  the  American  states  we  find  the  power  of  democ- 
racy growing,  and  as  money  goes  out  of  politics, 
profits  of  promoters  decrease;  but  investments  at 
low  rates  of  interest  become  more  secure.  In  the 
cities  as  the  people  take  a  larger  part  in  city  affairs, 
as  corruption  in  politics  ceases,  the  boss  and  the  pro- 
moter go  out  of  use  hand  in  hand.  As  the  people 
rise,  the  plunderers  fall.  Honest  investments  are  not 
curtailed  by  the  rise  of  the  average  man  in  American 
life;  but  fabulous  speculative  profits  in  public  utilities 
are  becoming  things  of  the  past. 

Now  all  this  struggle  with  ignorance  in  its  first 
phase  through  the  school  and  playgrounds  and 
libraries  to  reduce  illiteracy;  in  its  second  phase 
through  municipal  administration  to  get  the  truth 
before  the  common  people,  and  in  its  third  phase 
widening  the  responsibility  of  the  citizen  to  remove 
partisan  bias  and  class  consciousness  has  cost  some 
one  something.  Some  one  has  been  taking  time 
from  his  business,  money  from  his  purse,  and  privi- 
leges from  his  ancient  rights.  Everywhere  there  has 
been  surrender  —  sacrifice.  And  in  so  much  as  we 
have  subdued  ignorance  we  have  been  circumscrib- 
ing greed  in  the  government  of  our  cities.  The 
affairs  of  the  folkmoot  of  old  were  simple  affairs 
that  any  adult  might  understand.     But  the  folk- 


PROGRESS  IN   AMERICAN  CITIES  115 

moot  of  our  great  cities  is  complex.  Justice  is  not 
obvious  to  the  illiterate,  the  misinformed,  or  the 
prejudiced,  and  yet  until  the  folkmoot  is  able  to 
establish  justice  —  to  deal  fairly  with  the  man  who 
wrongs  the  city  —  the  equilibrium  will  not  be  found, 
and  our  modern  problems  of  city  administration  will 
not  be  settled.  For  there  is  never  a  balance  until  it 
is  the  right  balance;  wrong,  whether  it  is  against  the 
poor  man  or  against  the  rich  man,  will  keep  jogging 
the  scales.  And  so  long  as  it  is  evident  that  Ameri- 
cans in  their  cities  have  put  considerable  self-sacrifice 
in  the  balance  it  is  fair  to  ask  what  has  been  gained? 
What  really  has  been  accomplished  ?  Wherein  is  the 
citizen  better  off  than  if  he  was  ignorant,  deluded,  and 
prejudiced?  Wherein  has  greed  been  checked? 
The  census  bulletins  indicate  that  148  American 
cities  of  over  30,000,  having  a  population  of 
nearly  23,000,000,  had  in  1908  a  per  capita  debt 
of  $60.54,  being  an  increase  of  debt  of  twenty- 
three  per  cent  in  five  years,  while  the  municipal 
expenditures  in  those  cities  increased  in  five  years 
from  $13.36  to  $14.90.  The  debt  is  increasing, 
and  the  outgo  for  expenses  is  but  slightly  less  than 
the  income  for  receipts.  If  Mr.  Gradgrind  desires 
the  facts,  they  are  disconcerting.  They  indicate 
that  as  municipal  administrators  we  are  tetering  on 


116  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

the  edge  of  Jfailure  with  all  our  fine  talk.  Yet  the 
facts  are  not  the  truth.  For  nearly  twenty-seven 
per  cent  of  the  increase  in  the  per  capita  expenses  in 
those  years  has  been  for  schools,  and  the  increase  of 
debt  has  been  mainly  the  purchase  price  of  public 
utilities.  For  instance:  the  census  bulletin  shows 
that  less  than  one  third  of  the  electric  light  and  power 
plants  in  the  United  States  were  municipally  owned 
in  1902.  That  number  has  now  increased  to  over 
two  fifths,  and  in  the  municipal  ownership  of  water- 
works plants  the  increase  is  much  larger.  The 
extent  to  which  municipal  ownership  of  public  utili- 
ties has  gone  in  recent  years  is  shown  by  the  "Hand- 
book of  American  Municipalities,"  a  most  accurate 
compilation  of  municipal  statistics  issued  by  the 
League  of  American  Municipalities.  This  handbook 
prints  the  statistics  of  two  hundred  and  eight  cities  — 
large  and  small,  and  all  but  sixty-five  of  them  are 
owners  of  some  public  utility,  and  when  one  elimi- 
nates the  smaller  cities  from  the  reckoning,  one  finds 
that  in  cities  of  over  40,000  only  seventeen  out  of  a 
hundred  are  under  the  old  order.  And  the  growing 
debt  of  our  cities,  which  now  exceeds  in  per  capita 
the  national  debt,  is  an  evidence  of  municipal  pros- 
perity, not  of  adversity.  For  the  revenues  from 
these  municipal  industries  are  in  excess  of  the  expend- 


PROGRESS  IN  AMERICAN  CITIES  117 

itures.  They  are  helping  to  pay  for  the  schools, 
the  parks,  the  libraries,  the  playgrounds.  Thus  the 
sacrifice  of  those  citizens  who  have  worked  to  check 
the  ignorance  of  the  people  of  all  grades  of  society  in 
the  city  —  the  work  of  the  underpaid  school-teacher, 
and  the  honest  school  board  member,  the  work  of  the 
politician  who  sold  his  soul  for  a  park  in  his  ward,  the 
work  of  the  reformers  who  demanded  to  see  the  books 
of  the  city,  the  work  of  the  city  politician  who  fought 
for  separate  elections  for  his  city  and  for  a  non- 
partisan judgment  from  the  people  in  city  affairs, 
the  work  of  the  committees  that  toiled  nights  and 
days  for  nothing  to  get  at  the  facts  when  the  water- 
works, or  the  electric  light,  or  the  docks  and  wharves 
were  purchased  —  the  work  of  these  people  has  been 
justified,  and  the  sacrifice  of  the  few  has  been  trans- 
formed into  the  blessing  of  the  many. 

And  yet  only  as  the  many  have  been  able  to  return 
to  the  city  what  it  has  given  have  they  been  really 
made  the  beneficiaries  of  the  vicarious  sacrifice.  That 
is  the  real  test  of  our  cities.  It  is  not  important  to 
know  what  our  schools  cost,  but  what  they  yield. 
It  is  not  of  significance  to  see  the  books,  if  we  do  not 
improve  the  conditions  they  show.  It  is  nothing  in 
the  long  run  to  break  party  caste,  if  we  do  not  build 
something  better.    It  is  of  no  avail  to  put  boodlers 


118      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

in  jail  and  elect  others  to  fill  their  places.  For  bood- 
ling  is  the  flower  and  not  the  root  of  evil.  And  the 
evil  is  ignorance  manifested  in  selfishness  among  the 
voters,  and  if  our  citizens  have  not  learned  the  com- 
mon sense  of  kindness,  they  have  learned  nothing. 

During  the  past  seven  years  the  American  people 
in  cities  have  been  investing  something  like  $5,000,000 
a  year  in  public  utilities.  Some  utilities  they  have 
bought.  Some  they  have  built.  But  in  either 
case  they  have  taken  business  that  was  private  and 
made  it  public.  The  movement  toward  municipal 
ownership  is  strong,  definite,  unwavering.  It  has 
been  growing  steadily  since  the  first  year  of  the  new 
century.  But  it  is  only  important  in  view  of  what- 
ever honesty  and  integrity  it  has  shown  in  the  public 
judgment.  Therefore  we  may  ask:  How  has  the 
transfer  of  business  been  conducted  ?  Has  any  one 
been  wronged  ?  Have  injustices  to  the  former  owners 
been  done  ?  Is  it  not  a  most  remarkable  testimony 
to  the  sense  of  justice  and  innate  decency  of  the  people 
of  American  cities  that,  in  all  this  municipal  trading, 
no  one  has  been  reported  as  having  been  seriously 
injured?  The  democracy  must  have  been  fair  to 
capital,  or  there  would  be  now  an  accusing  party  to 
bear  witness  to  the  democratic  ruthlessness  and 
greed.     But  the  people  seem  to  have  replaced  private 


PROGRESS  IN   AMERICAN  CITIES  119 

greed  of  capital  by  public  kindness  —  overcoming 
evil  with  good,  the  only  possible  way  to  ultimate 
victory.  The  people  living  in  American  cities  have 
a  billion  and  a  third  of  debts.  These  debts  represent 
largely  their  industrial  activities.  They  represent 
subways  constructed,  lighting  plants  bought,  docks 
and  wharves  acquired,  parks  laid  out  upon  confiscated 
ground,  schools  established,  market  places  located, 
hospitals  built,  equipped,  and  operated,  playgrounds 
and  farms  for  boys  and  girls  maintained,  sewers  and 
garbage  desiccating  plants  constructed,  waterworks 
and  heat  and  power  plants  taken  over  or  erected. 
Surely  if  the  democracy  was  unfair,  some  one  would 
organize  the  complaint  against  its  business  methods. 
The  people  have  been  extravagant;  they  have  been 
even  prodigal  and  foolish  in  some  of  their  industrial 
ventures.  But  they  have  not  been  unjust.  The 
final  social  judgments  of  democracy  in  our  American 
cities  have  justified  in  the  public  kindness  all  of  un- 
selfish effort  that  has  been  devoted  to  them.  And, 
moreover,  with  the  manifestation  of  the  fairness  of 
the  people,  a  respect  for  them  has  grown  up  among 
politicians.  There  must  always  be  a  ruling  class  in 
America  —  the  class  that  makes  politics  its  business. 
And  that  class  will  not  be  reformed  by  putting  its 
members  in  jail  —  not  particularly.     It  is  being  re- 


120  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

formed,  however,  in  our  American  cities  by  the  grow- 
ing moral  intelligence  of  the  average  men.  Our 
government  is  representative.  Our  ruling  classes 
must  be  of  our  own  kind.  And  as  the  Municipal 
Researchers  rise  Tammany  will  fall,  not  because  the 
Researchers  happen  to  be  better  men  than  Tammany 
men,  but  because  the  average  man  is  of  a  higher  type 
than  the  Tammany  average.  Hence  in  a  score  of 
our  American  cities  the  power  of  the  local  boss  is 
sinking  as  the  intelligence  and  honesty  of  the  people 
is  rising.  The  whole  tendency  of  municipal  politics 
is  away  from  the  irresponsible  boss  to  the  responsible 
ruler,  from  the  aristocracy  of  the  machine  to  repre- 
sentative government,  because  the  responsible  ruler 
represents  the  public's  moral  average  better  than 
the  irresponsible  boss.  The  boss  is  no  worse  than  he 
has  been  for  a  generation.  It  is  the  people  that  have 
changed.  The  meaning  of  the  Des  Moines  plan  of 
municipal  government  and  the  real  significance  of 
the  movement  for  uniform  municipal  accounting  is 
to  simplify  responsibility  in  municipal  affairs,  and 
fix  it  definitely  where  it  belongs.  It  is  not  a  move- 
ment for  cheap  government,  for  lower  taxes,  for 
better  service,  so  much  as  it  is  a  tendency  that  must 
follow  the  enlightenment  of  the  people  —  a  tendency 
toward  real  self-government.    It  is  the  intelligent 


PROGRESS  IN  AMERICAN  CITIES  121 

rise  of  the  individual,  and  so  far  from  being  social- 
istic —  in  the  sense  that  socialism  is  commonly  sup- 
posed to  be  the  submersion  of  the  man  in  the  mass  — 
the  modern  movement  in  American  politics  is  bristling 
with  rampant,  militant,  unhampered  men  crowding 
out  of  the  mass  for  individual  elbowroom. 

The  problems  before  American  cities  now  are 
fundamentally  problems  arising  from  aspirations  of 
democracy,  struggling  with  ignorance  and  greed. 
These  problems  manifest  themselves  in  many  forms. 
The  gravest  problems  are  those  that  come  from  the 
regulation  and  control  of  public  utilities.  For  the 
boss  gets  his  money  from  the  man  who  is  after  a  fran- 
chise, or  who  has  a  franchise  to  protect.  The  evils 
of  ballot-box  stuffing,  of  lawbreaking,  of  vice,  of 
petty  grafting,  follow  in  the  train  of  the  boss  and  the 
men  whom  he  elevates  with  his  tribute  levied  upon 
the  public  service  corporation.  Banish  the  boss,  and 
the  protector  of  gambling  and  organized  vice  is  gone. 
It  is  easy  enough  to  say  that  when  the  source  of  the 
boss's  supply  is  cut  off  that  he  will  disappear.  But 
that  means  the  municipalization  of  all  public  utili- 
ties —  light,  water,  heat,  power,  transportation,  and 
communication.  The  people  have  demonstrated  that 
they  are  competent  to  operate  their  water  supply. 
They  are  taking  hold  of  light,  heat,  and  power  with 


122  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

much  sense  and  ability.  They  can  sprinkle  and  clean 
their  own  streets,  just  as  they  drain  them  and  remove 
sewage  and  garbage.  These  matters  are  compara- 
tively simple.  Cincinnati  owns  a  railroad.  Chicago 
is  in  partnership  with  the  transportation  companies. 
San  Francisco  owns  a  street-car  line.  New  York 
owns  her  subways.  Most  cities  own  their  docks  and 
wharves.  But  municipal  ownership  of  street  rail- 
ways and  telephones  —  there  is  the  flag  of  truce. 
It  is  not  peace,  probably,  but  a  protocol.  In  the 
meantime  franchises  are  expiring,  and  the  grand  jury 
is  kept  busy!  It  is  likely  that  the  people  are  not  pre- 
pared for  municipal  ownership  of  street  railways  and 
telephones.  They  have  come  long  distances  in  ten 
years.  They  have  a  firmer  grip  on  their  local  govern- 
ments than  ever  before.  But  the  schoolhouses  and 
playgrounds  and  parks  and  libraries  are  filled,  and 
there  are  crowds  before  the  bulletin  boards  of  the  bu- 
reau of  Municipal  Research;  also  party  control  is  dis- 
tinctly loosening ;  and  inevitably  the  protocol  with  the 
transportation  companies  must  end,  and  telephones 
as  private  enterprises  may  count  their  days  after  the 
street  railways  follow  the  waterworks  and  the  lighting 
plants.  For  as  the  Supreme  Court '  has  indicated, 
capital  in  so  far  as  it  is  invested  in  concerns  having  a 

1  Munn  vs.  Illinois. 


PROGRESS  IN   AMERICAN  CITIES  123 

public  use  is  in  that  public  use  public  capital,  and 
must  be  subject  to  control  for  the  common  good. 
And  in  a  city  the  common  good  requires  the  estab- 
lishment of  rates  that  will  not  yield  large  profits  to 
capital  invested  in  public  service  corporations.  For 
the  common  good  such  capital  must  be  transferred 
from  those  funds  paying  profits  in  dividends  on  stock 
to  those  funds  that  merely  may  pay  interest  on 
bonds;  so  public  service  corporations  must  submit 
to  public  ownership.  Certainly  it  is  a  new  tenet  for 
America,  but  it  seems  to  be  inevitable,  considering 
the  direction  that  American  democracy  is  taking,  that 
as  the  people  grow  able  to  govern  themselves,  they 
are  able  to  finance  themselves,  and  thereby  to  over- 
come the  evils  of  business  impeding  their  progress  by 
operating  the  irritating  business  impediment  them- 
selves. Moreover  the  tribute  public  service  corpora- 
tions pay  to  local  bosses  to  protect  special  privileges 
brings  bad  government  to  the  city :  the  more  tribute, 
the  worse  city  government.  So  the  more  the  lawyers 
of  the  franchise  owners  pay  to  bosses  to  help  in  poli- 
tics, the  sooner  will  the  holders  of  stock  in  private 
corporations  find  themselves  holding  municipal  bonds 
in  lieu  thereof.  The  harder  the  pressure  is  from 
above,  the  stronger  the  rebound  will  be  from  below. 
This  rebound  is  not  local  and  sporadic.    It  is  not 


124      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

socialistic.  For  William  M.  Ivins,  Republican  can- 
didate for  mayor  of  New  York  in  1907,  when  attorney 
for  the  Public  Utilities  Commission  of  New  York  City, 
by  appointment  from  Governor  Hughes,  after  two 
years  of  hard  technical  investigation  of  the  new  sub- 
ject, declared  that  the  private  operation  of  public 
utilities  under  franchises  is  a  failure.  He  is  for  public 
ownership.  Charles  Francis  Adams,  at  the  head  of 
a  commission  appointed  in  Massachusetts,  after 
investigating  public  utilities  all  over  America,  reports 
the  same  conclusion.  New  Orleans  and  San  Francisco 
are  installing  municipal  waterworks.  Los  Angeles, 
under  her  new  charter,  providing  for  the  initiative 
and  referendum  and  the  recall,  is  not  only  installing 
municipal  waterworks,  but  electricity,  and  water 
for  irrigation,  and  power  for  commercial  purposes. 
Under  her  new  charter  Los  Angeles  is  empowered  to 
buy  all  of  her  public  utilities,  and  Chicago  has  just 
granted  a  telephone  ordinance  with  a  right  to  pur- 
chase reserved  in  it.  In  Minneapolis  the  public 
ownership  fight  is  the  leading  issue,  just  as  it  is  in 
Detroit.  In  Galveston,  where  the  taxes  have  been 
increased  to  nearly  sixty  mills,  the  leading  citizens, 
having  secured  such  good  returns  from  their  tax  in- 
vestment under  a  commission  system  of  government, 
have  signed  a    great  petition    asking  the    commis- 


PROGRESS  IN   AMERICAN  CITIES  125 

sioners  not  to  retrench,  but  to  keep  on  in  the  good 
work.  The  power  of  the  public  service  corporation 
through  the  city  boss  is  on  the  wane.  Moreover, 
those  who  are  on  the  wrong  side  know  that  it  is  noth- 
ing but  a  masterly  retreat.  Said  W.  Carl  Ely,  presi- 
dent of  the  American  Street  and  Interurban  Railway 
Association,  speaking  of  the  movement  to  control 
public  service  corporations:  "This  movement  is  not 
confined  to  any  state.  It  is  sweeping  over  the  whole 
world.  The  people  are  asserting  themselves.  We 
might  as  well  seek  to  dam  Niagara  as  to  stop  it. 
Deep  down  in  our  hearts  we  know  it  is  right.  Let 
us  be  men  enough  to  recognize  it;  let  us  cooperate 
with  the  people  and  let  them  understand  we  are 
working  together;  be  frank  with  them,  and  we  shall 
find  that  they  only  want  fair  and  square  treatment. 
We  have  had  trouble  because  there  was  captious 
fighting  against  proper  measures.  Let  us  deal  with 
the  people  in  the  most  open  way  possible  and  'fare 
trouble,'  and  all  other  troubles,  will  disappear."  And 
more  remarkable  than  the  words  themselves  is  the 
fact  that  these  words  were  received  by  the  association 
with  "great  applause  and  general  approval." 

Less  in  importance  after  local  self-government 
free  from  corporation  domination,  is  the  demand  for 
home  rule   for   cities,  free   from   state   domination. 


126  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

For  the  one  complaint  universal  to  all  American  cities 
is  against  the  interference  of  the  state  in  local  matters 
—  chiefly  local  matters  of  finance.  Write  to  any 
American  mayor,  and  he  will  tell  you  that  if  he  could 
rub  Aladdin's  lamp,  he  would  ask  for  home  rule.  And 
he  desires  home  rule  chiefly  so  that  the  city  can  in- 
crease its  debt.  The  people  in  our  large  cities  are 
restive.  They  wish  to  do  more  than  they  are  doing. 
The  feeling  is  universal.  A  letter  from  the  bureau 
of  information  of  the  American  League  of  Municipali- 
ties says:  — 

"I  have  before  me  notes  concerning  three  great 
cities,  Chicago,  Philadelphia,  and  Cincinnati,  each  of 
which  is  preparing  to  make  demands  on  their  respec- 
tive state  legislatures  for  relief.  They  argue  for 
larger  debt  limit. 

"Chicago  asks  for  legislation  that  will  permit  an 
increase  in  its  bonded  indebtedness  of  about 
$16,000,000.  Philadelphia  cries  that  it  is  unfairly 
handicapped  by  the  present  limitation  of  the  munici- 
pality's bonded  indebtedness  to  seven  per  cent  of 
the  realty  assessments.  Cincinnati  has  organized 
a  committee  to  ask  the  legislature  for  an  amendment 
to  the  so-called  Longworth  act.  This  committee 
will  ask  that  the  city  may  at  any  time  issue  bonds 
without  limit  for  street  and  sewer  improvements,  the 
erection  of  viaducts  and  the  construction  of  subways, 
the  laying  out  of  parks  and  boulevards,  the  estab- 
lishment of  public  bath  houses  and  municipal  lodging 
houses,  and  the  building  of  a  new  hospital  and  a  new 
house  of  refuge." 


PROGRESS  IN  AMERICAN  CITIES  127 

In  considering  this  problem  of  public  service,  it  is 
important  to  bear  well  in  mind  this  fact:  that  these 
public  service  corporations  that  are  bones  of  conten- 
tion in  our  cities  first  of  all  serve  our  homes.  Light, 
water,  heat,  and  transportation  are  home  comforts. 
Moreover,  they  are  no  longer  luxuries  for  the  rich; 
they  are  more  diffused  among  us  than  are  the  com- 
forts of  the  well-to-do.  Light,  heat,  water,  and 
transportation  are  the  necessities  of  all  the  people, 
as  society  is  organized  to-day.  Combined,  these 
utilities  are  the  footing  stones  of  the  foundation  of 
the  creature  needs  of  a  civilized  home  in  every 
American  city  —  large  or  small.  They  are  labor 
savers,  and  hence  industrial  emancipators  of  women. 
A  penny  increase  in  the  price  of  any  of  these  utilities, 
or  any  variance  from  good  service,  is  a  serious  matter 
in  the  household  economy  of  the  people.  And  we 
Americans  are  home  dwellers  before  we  are  anything 
else.  It  is  absurd  to  say  that  elements  so  intimate 
and  vital  in  the  happiness  and  efficiency  of  the  home 
—  our  most  important  institution  —  shall  not  be  en- 
tirely under  our  own  direction  and  control,  even 
if  that  direction  and  control  involve  ownership. 

As  the  forces  of  education  turn  out  from  the  schools 
and  their  auxiliaries  citizens  who  think,  the  field  of 
municipal  activities  wherein  these  people  live  must 


128      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

broaden.  They  cannot  remain  stationary.  We  are 
in  the  youth  of  our  race  life.  Yet  we  hold  to  the 
racial  institutions  that  made  us  conquerors  of  the 
Mongol  and  the  Semite:  the  home  and  the  folk- 
moot.  And  the  strong  definite  movement  all  over 
America  for  direct  nominations  by  the  people,  for 
the  referendum  in  the  cities,  for  nonpartisan  city 
government,  all  these  are  the  return  to  the  rule  of  the 
people.  What  is  this  universal  movement  in  our 
American  cities  for  home  rule  but  the  old  race  call 
for  the  rule  of  the  folk?  It  is  set  as  firmly  in  our 
bones  as  the  lust  of  land.  And  we  are  as  ready  as 
ever  to  fight  for  the  rule  of  the  people,  whether  the 
contest  be  set  at  arms,  in  politics,  or  in  business. 
Whenever  it  has  been  a  question  of  self-government 
and  municipal  ownership  on  the  one  hand,  or  boss 
rule  and  private  ownership  of  the  municipal  indus- 
tries on  the  other  hand,  New  York  and  Chicago 
have  voted  for  municipal  ownership.  Our  bourbon 
statesmen  may  talk  themselves  black  in  the  face 
telling  us  that  municipal  ownership  requires  the 
abandonment  of  the  traditions  of  the  fathers;  but 
when  private  ownership  means  injustice  or  the 
domination  of  bosses,  something  deeper  than  consti- 
tutions and  traditions  stirs  in  the  blood.  For  we 
are  a  freeborn  people.    Moreover,  we  are  a  young 


PROGRESS  IN  AMERICAN  CITIES  129 

race.  We  still  see  visions.  And  the  genius  of  a 
people  that  can  conceive  and  accomplish  self-govern- 
ment under  a  king  and  a  monarch  or  a  republic,  will 
keep  self-government  pure  and  undenled,  under  what- 
ever scheme  it  works  out  for  the  control  or  ownership 
of  its  public  utilities.  So  long  as  the  utilities  serve 
a  home  that  is  sound  and  wholesome  and  clean,  that 
home  will  breed  men  and  women  with  the  clear  strain 
of  the  blood  that  is  not  dismayed  or  vanquished  by 
any  broadening  scheme  of  local  self-government. 
What  we  have  gained  in  three  thousand  years  of 
pilgrimage  westward  across  the  earth  we  have  kept, 
and  we  are  stronger  than  ever  before  in  our  struggle 
for  the  retention  of  the  home  and  the  home  rule.  And 
the  city,  which  seems  to  be  in  a  fair  way  of  becoming 
the  prevailing  type  of  local  government  on  this  conti- 
nent, will  be  a  free  city. 

A  curious  miracle  —  but  how  old  —  is  this  city 
life  of  ours.  Here  in  these  American  cities  the  race 
migrations  of  Europe  are  epitomized.  The  hand 
of  fate  seems  spinning  the  ancient  web,  with  the 
primeval  woof.  From  the  skein  in  the  upland  plains 
behind  the  Himalayas  the  moving  hand  scattered  the 
threads  through  Europe  from  Asia  Minor  to  Gibraltar 
and  northward  to  the  Baltic  and  the  Arctic  Sea.  Now 
the  hand  is  gathering  up  the  threads  through  our 


130  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

American  cities,  weaving  the  pied  ravelings  into  the 
cloth  for  whatever  wedding  garments  fate  may  be 
making  for  us  in  the  fullness  of  time.  And  yet, 
when  the  Celt  and  the  German  came  and  pushed  the 
American  out  of  the  slums  and  up  and  on,  we  feared 
for  the  nation;  and  when  the  Italians  crowded  in  and 
pushed  the  Irish  and  the  Germans  up  and  on,  again 
we  were  afraid;  and  when  the  Norsemen  came  charg- 
ing through  our  cities  to  their  homes  on  the  prairies, 
and  pushed  onward,  again  we  feared  for  our  institu- 
tions. And  now  that  the  Greeks  and  the  Slavs  and 
the  Armenians  and  the  Huns  and  Poles  are  pushing 
the  Latin  races  up  from  the  slums  and  deeper  into 
our  civilization,  we  need  not  tremble  for  our  institu- 
tions. For  these  strangers  are  all  of  the  old  blood. 
They  will  merge  into  the  old  blood  again.  The  Amer- 
ican is  no  sport,  no  chance  child,  no  woods  colt  in  the 
races  of  men.  He  is  the  flower  of  the  purest  blood  on 
earth,  the  youngest  blood  on  earth.  And  the  unseen 
hand  of  fate  that  is  weaving  the  garment  will  weave 
ignorance  and  greed  out  of  its  warp,  and  make  it 
strong  and  fine  and  clean.  And  so  these  cities  of  ours 
—  spindles  in  the  hands  of  fate  —  dirty  though  they 
are,  and  befouled,  must  keep  moving  incessantly  as 
they  weave  the  garment. 


GHAPTER  VI 

THE   LEAVEN  IN  THE   NATIONAL   LUMP 

Theoretically  this  nation  lives  under  a  govern- 
ment of  laws  sustained  by  a  written  Constitution. 
Practically  it  is  a  government  by  public  sentiment. 
This  does  not  mean  that  it  is  a  government  by  public 
clamor.  But  it  does  mean  that  whenever  the  people 
have  believed  in  a  public  policy,  whether  it  was  the 
direct  election  of  the  President  by  the  people,  or 
the  emancipation  of  slaves,  or  the  issue  of  greenbacks, 
or  the  acquisition  of  colonies,  or  the  direct  election 
of  United  States  senators,  and  have  believed  in  these 
things  deeply  enough  to  sacrifice  their  own  personal 
comfort  for  them,  —  to  fight  for  them  in  short,  —  the 
Constitution  has  never  been  strong  enough  to  hold 
them  back.  The  Constitution  was  meant  to  suppress 
clamor,  not  sentiment;  the  difference  between  the 
two  expressions,  being  —  broadly  —  that  clamor  is 
the  desire  to  reform  some  one  else,  and  public  senti- 
ment is  the  desire  to  reform  one's  self.  Public  clamor 
is  essentially  selfish  —  tyrannical.  Real  public  sen- 
timent   is    essentially    unselfish  —  democratic.    For 

131 


132  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

democracy  is,  at  base,  altruism  expressed  in  terms  of 
self-government.  And  so  to  know  what  kind  of  a 
national  government  we  really  have  in  America,  it 
is  as  necessary  to  study  our  public  sentiment  as  it  is 
to  examine  our  laws  and  consider  our  written  Consti- 
tution. 

For  while  a  city  or  a  state  may  exhibit  some 
sporadic  legalization  of  clamor,  the  area  of  the  nation 
is  too  large,  geographically,  mentally,  and  morally, 
for  sheer  clamor  often  to  get  legal  recognition.  A 
democracy  must  be  big.  Size  is  a  fundamental  part 
of  it;  and  our  very  bigness  here  in  America  has  pre- 
vented many  vital  mistakes.  Clamor,  from  Cali- 
fornia to  Maine,  and  from  Florida  to  Oregon,  however 
loud  and  terrifying,  generally  wears  itself  out  before 
the  machinery  of  law  can  stamp  it  and  authorize  it. 
So,  as  a  rule,  our  federal  laws  are  observed;  not  be- 
cause the  national  government  is  so  ruthless,  but 
because  its  laws  are  just. 

And  in  taking  inventory  of  our  national  progress 
during  the  decade  or  two  last  past,  we  must  consider, 
along  with  our  new  laws,  the  public  sentiment  that 
made  them,  and  that  sustains  them,  and  is  demand- 
ing the  extension  of  these  laws  into  larger  areas. 
For  the  sentiment  that  made  the  laws  is  more  impor- 
tant than  the  laws  themselves.    And  the  study  of 


THE  LEAVEN  IN  THE  NATIONAL  LUMP     133 

the  organization  and  growth  of  sentiment  is  an  im- 
portant part  of  the  work  of  the  student  of  govern- 
ment. For  much  error  prevails  about  the  way  this 
nation  thinks.  Commonly,  newspapers  are  sup- 
posed to  be  the  great  factories  of  sentiment.  Gentle- 
men in  the  pillory  of  public  sentiment  blame  their 
discomfiture  upon  the  newspapers  and  magazines. 
And,  if  these  gentlemen  are  in  funds  at  the  moment, 
they  buy  other  newspapers,  and  subsidize  other  maga- 
zines, and  —  accomplish  nothing.  For  newspapers 
and  books  and  magazines  do  not  make  sentiment. 
They  merely  voice  sentiment.  Often  they  make 
clamor,  but  public  sentiment  grows.  It  is  as  evanes- 
cent as  the  wind,  and  as  resistless  as  the  waves.  It 
may  be  dammed,  but  not  permanently  checked. 
And  in  America,  public  sentiment  grows  after  the 
manner  of  the  genius  of  the  people:  by  parliamen- 
tary organization.  Given  an  idea  in  common  to 
three  Americans,  and  the  best  known  becomes  presi- 
dent, the  most  effective  secretary,  and  the  richest  of 
the  three  treasurer.  These  are  our  faith,  hope,  and 
charity. 

"To  believe  your  own  thought,  to  believe  that  what 
is  true  for  you  in  your  private  heart  is  true  for  all 
men  —  that  is  genius,"  says  Emerson,  and  admon- 
ishes us,  "Speak  your  latent  conviction,  and  it  shall 


134  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

be  the  universal  sense;  for  the  inmost  in  due  time 
becomes  the  outmost."  So  public  sentiment  grows 
in  America.  An  idea  comes  to  a  man  and  simul- 
taneously to  his  brother  a  thousand  miles  away,  or 
perhaps  in  the  next  block.  The  idea  draws  them 
together.  When  they  meet,  there  is  a  third  and  a 
fourth  with  them,  and  they  organize.  The  idea  has 
become  a  force  in  the  world.  It  has  the  seed  of 
events  in  it.  If  men  are  willing  to  sacrifice  their 
time  for  it,  to  give  up  their  comforts  for  it,  to  live  for 
it,  and,  if  need  be,  to  die  for  it,  the  group  that  fostered 
it  multiplies  by  division,  in  some  curious  way,  into  a 
multitude  of  groups,  all  pressing  the  idea  into  life. 
There  is  the  state  association,  two,  three,  perhaps  four 
state  associations  —  all  advocating  the  righteous- 
ness of  the  idea.  Then  comes  a  call  for  a  national 
association,  and  the  wildfire  is  out.  State  associa- 
tions spring  up  everywhere.  A  national  bureau  is 
set  up  promoting  the  idea,  fostering  its  propaganda, 
bound  to  its  work  in  the  world,  and  then  follows  a 
national  law,  and  the  private  organization  becomes 
a  public  institution. 

Ideas  in  various  stages  of  incubation  may  be  seen 
all  over  the  country.  Where  the  demand  for  pure 
food  was  ten  years  ago,  the  contest  against  tubercu- 
losis is  to-day.    And  ten  years  from  now,  tubercu- 


THE  LEAVEN  IN  THE  NATIONAL  LUMP      135 

losis  may  be  as  arch  an  enemy  to  the  laws  of  the 
republic  as  adulterated  food  is  to-day.  And  here 
is  another  curious  thing  about  the  advancement  of 
ideas:  Just  as  the  same  hundred  men  or  so  are  the 
directors  of  all  our  big  banks,  of  all  our  great  railroads, 
and  of  many  of  our  public  service  corporations  — 
directing  the  centripetal  forces  of  American  society, — 
so  another  group  of  a  hundred  men,  more  or  less,  is 
found  directing  many  of  the  societies,  associations, 
conventions,  assemblies,  and  leagues  behind  the  be- 
nevolent movements  —  the  centrifugal  forces  of  Amer- 
ican society.  It  is  Morgan,  the  Goulds,  the  Harri- 
man  interests,  Winslow  Pierce,  Ryan,  Stillman,  and 
their  associates,  against  Seth  Low,  William  Dudley, 
Foulke,  the  Pinchot  interests,  Samuel  McCune  Lind- 
say, Jane  Addams,  Clinton  Rogers  Woodruff,  and 
their  associates.  They  are  captains  of  two  opposing 
groups  —  capital  and  democracy  —  each  necessary 
to  the  life  of  the  nation,  each  performing  his  organic 
function  in  our  body  politic  —  the  assimilation  of  the 
great  discovery  of  steam  into  our  social  body. 

Thus  our  history  is  made  by  men  organized  in 
parliamentary  form  bound  together  by  an  idea,  often 
opposing  a  force  not  always  organized  save  by  the 
instinct  of  fear  under  attack  which  makes  the  com- 
munity of  interest  in  business  and  in  politics.    For 


136      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

instance:  One  of  the  most  important  laws  put  on 
our  federal  statutes  in  two  decades  is  the  Hepburn 
railroad  law.  It  prohibits  discrimination  between 
individual  shippers  reasonably  well.  It  is  correcting 
a  serious  and  sinister  abuse  in  our  national  com- 
merce. The  law  is  fairly  well  observed.  The  senti- 
ment of  the  people  is  behind  it.  Here  is  the  leaven 
that  changed  the  national  lump.  Before  the  pas- 
sage of  the  Hepburn  law,  there  was  an  organization 
among  American  business  men  known  as  the  "  In- 
terstate Commerce  Convention."  It  was  composed 
of  state  and  local  commercial  and  trade  organiza- 
tions —  boards  of  trade,  fruit  growers,  lumbermen, 
and  the  like,  in  thirty-four  states,  and  in  addition 
to  these  it  comprised  thirty-five  national  associa- 
tions ;  like  the  American  Hereford  cattle  breeders,  the 
National  Association  of  Manufacturers,  the  national 
Paint,  Oil,  and  Varnish  Association,  the  National 
Hay  Association,  and  similar  organizations  that  one 
rarely  hears  of  in  the  newspapers.  This  Association 
of  associations,  called  the  "Interstate  Commerce 
Convention,"  met  from  time  to  time  and  formulated 
its  demands.  In  those  demands  was  sacrifice  for 
some  associations,  abnegation  of  special  privileges 
by  others,  selfishness  in  some  quarters  and  mean- 
ness in  others,  but  on  the  whole  what  they  asked 


THE  LEAVEN  IN  THE  NATIONAL  LUMP     137 

for  was  fair.  They  appealed  to  the  nation.  The 
people  were  convinced.  The  newspapers  began  to 
voice  the  sentiment  of  the  people.  The  president 
recognized  the  sentiment,  and  realized  its  justice. 
The  railroads  controlled  the  machinery  of  politics. 
They  had  hundreds  of  subsidized  newspapers.  They 
hired  men  to  establish  bureaus  and  to  write  contro- 
versial articles,  and  paid  editors  to  print  a  refutation 
of  the  justice  of  the  shippers'  demands.  Money  was 
spent  without  stint.  Millions  might  have  been  used, 
if  they  had  been  usable.  The  Interstate  Commerce 
Convention  had  raised  $22,855. 1  Gossip  said  at  the 
time,  and  the  lobbyists  for  the  railroads  boasted,  that 
they  had  two  millions.  Probably  they  had  no  such 
sum.  But  they  might  have  had  ten.  And  yet  the 
$22,000  of  the  shippers  was  enough.  Half  as  much 
would  have  done  as  well.  For  money  in  America 
does  not  make  sentiment.  Printing  presses  are  as 
useless  as  cheese  presses  in  making  sentiment.  Pub- 
he  sentiment  comes  out  of  the  consciences  of  the 
people,  and  it  cannot  be  fed  to  them  in  any  sort  of 
medicinal  form  from  newspapers,  magazines,  or  books. 
So  the  railroads  surrendered  with  all  their  money. 
The  Hepburn  law  was  enacted.  The  genius  of  the 
people   for   parliamentary   organization,    outside   of 

1  See  Appendix,  p.  262. 


138      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

constitutions  and  law  saved  them.  They  sacrificed 
something  —  did  these  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
people  in  the  organization  —  not  money,  but  time, 
and  convenience,  and  special  privileges,  —  passes,  in- 
side rates,  rebates,  concessions,  and  what  not  of  the 
crumbs  of  commerce,  and  by  giving  to  the  common 
good  they  won  for  the  common  good. 

Take  another  instance.  The  people  of  this  coun- 
try were  eating  poisoned  food.  The  president,  the 
secretary,  and  the  treasurer  met,  discussed  the  matter, 
and  the  Pure  Food  Association,  greatly  to  be  sniffed 
at  by  the  intrenched  forces  of  culinary  poison,  began 
its  work.  It  had  no  money.  It  had  no  newspapers. 
Newspapers  and  magazines  ten  years  ago  were  taking 
millions  of  dollars  in  advertising  from  manufacturers 
of  improper  foods  and  drugs.  But  the  pure  food 
show  began  to  appear  in  American  cities  and  towns, 
just  as  the  tuberculosis  exhibit  is  moving  over  the 
country  to-day.  The  people  learned  the  truth. 
The  wholesale  grocers'  associations  took  up  the  fight, 
and  in  spite  of  all  the  money  behind  the  manu- 
facturers of  the  adulterated  and  poisonous  food,  the 
pure  food  and  drug  act  passed  congress  in  June, 
1906,  and  became  a  law.  The  sacrifice  of  hundreds 
of  men  and  women,  who  were  willing  to  give  their 
time,  their  service,  and  their  names  to  the  cause  of 


THE  LEAVEN  IN  THE  NATIONAL  LUMP     139 

pure  food  for  the  masses,  was  more  potent  than  all 
the  legislative  machinery,  all  the  lobby  of  retailers, 
all  the  flood  of  telegrams  from  cattle  growers,  and  all 
the  forces  of  selfishness. 

Observe  still  another  illustration  of  the  force  of 
public  sentiment  in  our  American  life.  There  is  the 
National  Civil  Service  Reform  League.  The  forces 
of  plunder  and  graft  in  the  United  States  hate  that 
league  and  all  its  works.  The  high-caste  politicians 
of  the  states,  of  the  cities,  and  of  the  nation  make 
this  league  the  particular  object  of  their  curses.  If 
organized  politics,  with  all  its  power  and  with  all  its 
machinery,  could  stop  the  spread  of  the  civil  service, 
it  would  be  a  dead  issue.  Yet  this  little  handful  of 
men  in  the  Civil  Service  League  —  most  of  them 
highly  incompetent  in  the  machinations  of  practical 
politics  —  has  organized  the  sentiment  of  the  Ameri- 
can people  for  justice  in  the  public  service,  and  as  a 
result  during  the  last  eight  years  much  has  been 
accomplished.  In  1901,  sixteen  hundred  positions 
in  the  war  department  were  restored  to  the  classified 
service  after  removal  from  it  in  1899;  in  1902  two 
hundred  and  fifty  employees  of  the  temporary  gov- 
ernment in  Cuba  were  added  to  the  classified  list, 
and  labor  regulations  were  made  for  the  Washington 
departments.    The  next  year  the  Shipping  Commis- 


140  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

sioners  were  restored  to  the  classified  service  and  the 
Philippine  teachers  added,  and  in  1904  the  classifi- 
cation of  the  subordinates  in  the  Isthmian  Commis- 
sion began,  and  the  year  following  the  whole  labor 
service  was  put  under  control  of  the  Civil  Service 
Commission.  Since  then  the  fourth-class  postmasters 
have  been  protected  from  political  assaults,  and  a  rule 
has  been  established,  putting  presidential  postmasters 
under  the  merit  system;  under  this  rule  they  are  re- 
appointed without  reference  to  congressional  indorse- 
ment or  opposition,  if  their  records  are  in  the  first  grade 
of  the  service.  And  under  the  influence  of  the  National 
Civil  Service  Commission,  we  are  taking  the  first 
census  ever  taken  in  America  not  compiled  by  spoils- 
men. The  states  of  Wisconsin,  Illinois,  New  Jersey, 
Colorado  and  Kansas  have  adopted  laws  which  pro- 
tect certain  employees  in  certain  public  institutions 
from  removal  for  political  reasons,  and  in  a  measure 
establishing  the  merit  system.  Moreover,  San  Fran- 
cisco, Los  Angeles,  Des  Moines,  Cedar  Rapids,  At- 
lanta, Baltimore,  Duluth,  St.  Louis,  Wilmington, 
N.  C,  Oklahoma  City,  Portland,  Philadelphia,  Scran- 
ton,  Pittsburg,  Norfolk  and  all  of  the  sixty  cities  oper- 
ating under  the  commission  plan  of  government,  have 
established  civil  service  rules  for  one  or  more  of  the  city 
departments.    All  of  this  leaven  of  righteousness  is 


THE  LEAVEN  IN  THE  NATIONAL  LUMP      141 

worked  by  public  sentiment,  and  the  particular  organ- 
ism that  promotes  that  sentiment  is  the  National  Civil 
Service  League,  which  never  spends  over  $9,000  a 
year.  Money  plays  a  small  part  in  directing  the 
actual  current  of  American  public  life. 
|  In  1901  and  the  two  years  following,  commercial 
bodies  and  labor  unions  all  over  the  land  began 
petitioning  Congress  to  establish  some  sort  of  a 
bureau  of  commerce.  And  in  1903  the  Department 
of  Commerce  and  Labor  was  established.  It  marks 
the  greatest  advance  in  our  government's  relation  to 
the  individual  that  has  been  taken  for  a  generation. 
For  the  right  of  the  government  to  examine  the 
books  and  accounts  of  every  American  business  con- 
cern and  upon  its  own  judgment  of  expediency  to 
withhold  or  make  public  the  result  of  its  examina- 
tion, in  effect  is  legalized.  The  precedence  of  the 
common  good  over  the  private  right,  the  rights  of 
democracy  against  the  rights  of  capital  in  even 
private  business,  is  established  in  law.  This  estab- 
lishment makes  all  business  public  business  so  far 
as  its  status  before  the  law  is  concerned.  The  altru- 
ism of  democracy  has  no  stronger  fortress  in  America 
than  the  law  upon  which  the  Department  of  Com- 
merce and  Labor  is  founded.  Yet  it  was  founded 
without   excitement,    without   clamor,    because   the 


/ 


142  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

president,  the  secretary,  and  the  treasurer  of  a  thou- 
sand business  organizations  —  willing  to  reform  them- 
selves, to  subject  themselves  to  inspection  and  regu- 
lation, asked  for  it^ 

And  now  we  come  to  the  core  of  the  so-called 
reform  movement  in  America;  for  it  is  at  bottom  a 
national  movement.  What  we  find  in  ballot  laws 
and  democratic  tendencies  in  states,  what  we  find 
in  regulative  and  restrictive  legislation  in  the  various 
commonwealths,  what  we  find  in  the  reshaping  of 
charters  and  remaking  of  municipal  governments 
are  but  the  local  symptoms  of  our  national  ado- 
lescence. They  are  growing  pains  of  the  new  life 
that  is  upon  us.  When  President  Roosevelt  inter- 
fered in  the  anthracite  coal  strike  early  in  his  adminis- 
tration, he  did  not  create  the  sentiment  which  backed 
him  up  so  loyally  in  his  extra-constitutional  act.  A 
score  of  organizations  for  a  decade  had  been  making 
sentiment  which  recognized  the  common  good  as 
paramount  to  the  private  right.  The  right  of 
property  as  against  the  right  of  the  people  was  a 
shell.  It  was  worm-eaten  by  public  sentiment,  and 
however  the  coal  operators  might  chatter  about 
their  divine  rights,  the  real  divine  right  was  that  of 
the  people  to  keep  warm  at  a  reasonable  price. 
Chief  among  the  organizations  propagating  the  right 


THE  LEAVEN   IN  THE  NATIONAL  LUMP      143 

of  the  people  to  industrial  peace  was  and  is  the 
National  Civic  Federation.  It  is  composed  largely 
of  rich  men  who  have  vision  to  see  that  they  must 
surrender  to  the  common  good  much  of  their  vested 
rights,  and  generally  these  men  find  joy  in  it.  Among 
other  members  of  the  Federation  are  labor  leaders 
who  see  that  they  too  and  their  constituents  must 
give  in  before  the  common  good,  and  take  joy  in  the 
giving.  That  sentiment  is  abroad  in  America;  it  is 
the  soul  of  our  new-born  democracy.  So  that  one 
who  looks  at  the  large  national  movements  of  the 
decade  now  closing  will  find  that  those  movements 
which  have  become  national  laws  are  laws  looking 
to  the  distribution  rather  than  the  accumulation  of 
wealth.  Practically  all  the  large  national  organi- 
zations which  jam  the  trains  annually  going  to  their 
conventions  are  fundamentally  altruistic.  There  are 
a  million  Masons  in  the  United  States.  There  are 
six  million  members  of  fraternal  insurance  companies 
distributing  annually  nearly  $6,000,000  in  sick  and 
death  benefits,  and  giving  almost  as  much  more  in 
free  fraternal  service  from  man  to  man  in  time  of 
trouble.  For  this  democratic  tendency  of  our  times 
does  not  express  itself  well  in  dollars  and  cents. 
But  always  it  is  ready  to  respond  to  any  call,  whether 
political  or  social  or  economic,  when  the  voice  is  clear 


144  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

and  the  motive  unblurred.  When  Theodore  Roose- 
velt came  to  the  White  House,  he  merely  saw  the 
obvious  thing,  and  did  it,  and  became  a  force  for 
righteousness  — the  first  leader  the  nation  has  de- 
veloped since  Lincoln  —  because  he  had  a  righteous 
people  behind  him. 

The  important  measures  accomplished  by  the 
Roosevelt  administration  are  these:  the  regulation 
of  corporations,  the  beginning  of  the  Panama  Canal, 
the  enactment  of  the  pure  food  law,  the  reclamation 
of  the  desert  by  irrigation,  the  preservation  of  the  for- 
ests and  water  rights,  the  extension  of  the  civil  service, 
the  establishment  of  peace  under  the  Portsmouth 
treaty.  These  may  be  called  the  Roosevelt  policies. 
Yet  they  are  not  his.  He  merely  adopted  them. 
He  found  in  every  case  a  strong  parliamentary 
organization,  working  for  these  things.  Moreover, 
in  every  case  these  organizations  were  poor  in  funds 
and  rich  in  men,  and  were  fighting  intrenched  in- 
terests rich  in  funds  if  often  poor  in  men.  The  strug- 
gle of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Convention  with 
its  pitiful  little  $22,000  against  the  millions  of  the 
railroads  has  been  noted.  The  same  forces  that 
fought  the  Hepburn  law  and  the  establishment  of 
the  department  of  Commerce  and  Labor  opposed 
the  Panama  Canal  undertaking.    For  the  canal  will 


THE  LEAVEN  IN  THE  NATIONAL  LUMP      145 

play  havoc  with  transcontinental  rates.  And  the 
packers  and  poison  dealers  who  opposed  the  pure 
food  and  drug  law  were  beaten  by  the  same  little 
David,  in  another  coat,  who  slew  the  railroad  Goliath 
in  the  first  two  battles.  The  Irrigation  Congress  had 
to  fight  the  cattle  men  and  the  sheep  men  who  had 
the  ranges  and  desired  to  keep  them,  but  the  men 
with  vision  won,  and  the  fields  were  cut  into  "quar- 
ters" and  "eighties"  and  the  desert  blossomed  as 
the  rose.  In  the  contest  for  the  preservation  of  the 
forests,  the  timber  cutters  have  had  nine  points  of 
the  law.  They  have  had  possession,  and  they  have 
had  unlimited  funds.  And  the  American  Forestry 
Association,  the  Appalachian  National  Forest  Asso- 
ciation, the  International  Society  of  Arboriculture, 
the  Joint  Committee  on  Conservation,  and  the 
Society  of  American  Foresters  have  had  less  funds 
than  it  takes  to  give  a  national  lumbermen's  ban- 
quet —  yet  the  feeble  folk  built  their  homes  among 
the  rocks  of  simple  justice  and  are  winning,  and  in- 
evitably must  win.  When  he  established  peace  at 
Portsmouth,  President  Roosevelt  was  not  alone. 
There  was  with  him  the  sentiment  of  a  nation  fos- 
tered by  the  American  Peace  Society,  maintaining 
eighteen  lecturers  in  the  field,  the  Association  for 
International  Conciliation,  the  Universal  Peace  Union, 


146      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

and  the  Lake  Mohonk  Peace  Conference,  not  to  men- 
tion thirty-two  million  of  church  communicants  in 
the  nation.  The  history  of  the  Roosevelt  adminis- 
tration, with  its  wonderful  advance  in  our  national 
institutions,  has  been  the  history  of  the  expression 
of  the  people  rather  than  the  growth  of  the  people. 
Like  Homer,  when  he  "smote  his  bloomin'  lyre," 
Theodore  Roosevelt  found  the  people  bursting  with 
pent-up  righteousness,  "and  what  he  thought  he 
might  require,  he  went  and  took."  And  yet  with- 
out the  leadership  of  Theodore  Roosevelt,  without 
his  personality  to  dramatize  the  growing  righteous- 
ness of  the  people,  it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  what 
calamity  of  misdirected  radicalism  might  have  been 
visited  upon  the  nation.  If  that  righteous  wrath 
of  the  people  at  the  selfish  forces  of  society  had  not 
found  expression  through  President  Roosevelt,  it 
would  have  been  voiced  through  demagogues  at  an 
awful  cost  to  the  nation.  His  genius  lies  not  in 
making  sentiment,  but  in  directing  it  into  sane, 
conservative,  workable  laws. 

Since  the  Spanish  War,  the  whole  movement  of 
the  people  from  crass  materialism  —  so  evident  in 
our  business  and  politics  and  religion  —  is  the  move- 
ment of  an  organizing  people.  It  has  been  as  mys- 
teriously regular  as  the  growth  of  life  in  its  inanimate 


THE  LEAVEN  IN  THE  NATIONAL  LUMP      147 

form.  It  is  as  though  the  social  body  were  the  host 
of  a  myriad  altruistic  bacteria,  each  somewhat  dif- 
ferent from  the  other,  but  all  having  a  strong  cen- 
trifugal movement,  and  all  united  to  produce  a  demo- 
cratic tendency  that  is  not  a  disease,  but  a  growth. 
The  blood  of  our  national  life  is  thick  with  these 
germs  that  are  consuming  the  poison  of  selfish  decay 
as  manifest  in  sheer  gross  capitalism  that  threatened 
us,  and  these  altruistic  bacteria  show,  not  senility,  but 
youth  in  us. 

It  is  therefore  proper  to  examine  a  few  of  the 
hundreds  of  more  prominent  organizations  having 
a  national  scope  and  character,  and  aiming  at  distinct 
betterments  of  our  common  life.  For  these  organi- 
zations are  prophetic.  What  the  civil  service  re- 
formers have  done,  what  the  peace  advocates  are 
doing,  what  the  conservators  of  national  resources 
are  in  the  way  of  doing,  what  the  commercial  bodies 
of  the  nation  have  well  under  way,  in  the  matter  of 
railroad  regulation,  ocean  competition,  and  corporate 
restriction,  the  other  organized  forces  of  righteous- 
ness may  well  expect  to  accomplish.  For  they  are 
all  common  symptoms  of  a  national  condition,  and 
whatsoever  is  worthy  and  of  good  report  will  prevail. 

One  of  the  most  ominous  shadows  casting  itself 
before   some   coming  event  in   our  national  life  is 


148      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

the  American  Federation  of  Labor.  And  it  is  im- 
portant, not  because  it  affects  so  many  people, 
though  probably  ten  million  Americans  are  directly 
affected  by  the  life  of  the  Federation ;  it  is  important 
because  of  the  way  these  ten  millions  of  people  are 
affected.  For  all  of  them,  men  who  work  and  their 
wives,  sisters,  children,  sweethearts,  fathers  and 
mothers,  and  sympathizing  friends,  make  the  Feder- 
ation, or  some  one  of  its  component  parts,  their  re- 
ligion. They  are  willing  to  sacrifice  not  only  their 
comfort  for  it,  but  time  and  again  they  do  sacrifice 
their  very  necessities  for  it.  Their  conduct  —  which 
is  nine-tenths  of  life  —  is  regulated  by  the  Federa- 
tion, and  their  creed  in  religion  and  politics  is  more 
or  less  biased  by  it.  The  material  results  of  their 
altruistic  faith  in  the  Federation  may  be  seen  in  the 
fact  that  the  members  paid  $1,257,244  in  death 
benefits  in  1908,  and  $593,541  in  sick  benefits, 
$205,254  in  unemployed  benefits,  and  $2,549,759 
in  strike  benefits.  Here  is  a  grand  total  of 
four  and  a  half  million  dollars  raised  by  men 
to  whom  a  dollar  means  more  than  a  hundred 
dollars  means  to  the  forces  these  men  are  con- 
tending with.  And  when  one  considers  what  a 
vast  amount  of  time  and  thought  and  service  has 
come  in  proportion  to  this  money  for  this  cause, 


THE  LEAVEN   IN  THE  NATIONAL  LUMP      149 

one  must  recognize  that  eventually  the  men  who 
devote  that  sacrifice  in  money,  and  that  time  and 
thought  and  personal  service  to  the  common  good, 
must  accomplish  real  results.  For  whatever  error 
now  is  impeding  them,  whether  error  in  their  own 
demands  or  error  in  the  claims  of  their  opponents, 
must  go  down  before  such  an  organized  force.  For 
this  is  not  a  material  world.  In  the  organization  of 
this  thing  we  call  civilization,  there  is  no  force  so 
resistless  as  kindness;  and  this  vast  kindness  of  the 
workers  to  their  brethren  —  whatever  of  cruelty, 
whatever  of  meanness,  it  may  call  forth,  either  on 
their  own  side  or  on  the  side  of  their  antagonists — 
in  spite  of  the  evil,  the  kindness  must  win  some  sub- 
stantial reward  in  the  end.  Laws  may  be  tem- 
porarily denied  to  them,  courts  may  check  them,  and 
executives  rest  within  their  legal  restrictions,  but  in 
the  end,  whatever  there  is  of  unselfish  justice  in  the 
demands  of  labor  for  a  humane  day,  a  clean  environ- 
ment, and  a  living  wage,  will  come  to  them  under 
national  law.  For  when  one  considers  how  far  labor 
has  come  in  fifty  years  in  this  country,  how  large  has 
been  its  actual  as  well  as  its  comparative  betterment 
as  the  result  of  organization,  the  future  becomes 
something  more  than  a  guess.  For  to-day  labor 
organization  is  of  a  higher  type,  the  leaders  have 


150      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

a  broader  outlook,  and  the  devotion  of  the  men 
and  women  inside  the  organization  is  of  a  more 
intelligent  kind  than  ever  it  was  before. 

So  labor  to-day  is  enlisting  in  its  cause  thousands 
who  are  not  allied  with  the  trades.  The  Child  Labor 
Committee  and  the  Consumers'  League  and  the 
National  Civic  Federation,  for  instance,  are  organi- 
zations outside  the  trades,  that  are  making  an  en- 
lightened public  sentiment  for  the  demands  of  labor. 
The  Child  Labor  Committee  has  secured  the  passage 
of  laws  restricting  the  employment  of  children  in 
practically  every  American  state,  and  there  is  talk 
of  a  Bureau  for  the  Consideration  of  Children  in  the 
national  government.  The  Consumers'  League  is 
devoting  itself  successfully  to  the  work  of  securing 
recognition  for  the  union  label  from  the  buying 
public ;  but  the  most  important  work  done  for  labor 
outside  of  the  labor  unions  is  being  done  by  the 
National  Civic  Federation.  And  that  work  is  not 
the  settlement  within  the  past  two  years  by  arbitra- 
tion of  street-car  strikes  in  San  Francisco,  New 
York,  Chicago,  Newark,  New  Orleans,  and  Pitts- 
burg; nor  the  settlement  of  strikes  in  the  textile 
trades  and  building  trades.  The  work  of  the  Civic 
Federation  until  recently  was  rather  beneficent  than 
scientific.    But  the  real  work  of  the  Federation  be- 


THE  LEAVEN  IN  THE  NATIONAL  LUMP      151 

gan  when  at  the  invitation  of  President  Seth  Low, 
John  Mitchell  took  charge  of  a  department  known 
as  the  department  of  Trades  Agreement  for  Indus- 
trial Peace.  This  department  headed  by  Mr.  Mitchell 
in  an  organization  financed  by  a  sufficiently  large  per 
cent  of  the  employers  of  labor  in  the  country  to 
make  a  governing  minority,  marks  a  definite  meet- 
ing place  for  labor  and  capital,  wherein  they  may 
treat  as  equals.  In  selecting  Mr.  Mitchell  and  giving 
him  authority  to  act,  the  employers  have  met  with 
fairness  the  self-sacrifice  of  labor,  and  a  real  basis  of 
agreement  may  be  found.  It  will  be  in  effect  an 
extra-legal  national  bureau  of  arbitration.  It  is  the 
history  of  our  government  that  we  have  always 
taken  over  for  government  use  any  good  thing  de- 
veloped by  the  people.  For  this  idea  is  following 
the  well-known  life  history  of  our  institutions.  First 
we  have  the  society  or  organization;  next  comes  the 
private  establishment  securing  results;  then  follows 
the  law,  putting  the  whole  matter  under  the  federal 
government.  Our  national  government  is  jealous 
of  large  success  outside  of  its  domain,  in  any  public 
matter.  And  whether  it  be  the  director  of  the 
Office  of  Public  Roads,  who  is  annually  promoting 
the  construction  of  thousands  of  miles  of  first-class 
public  roads,  or  the  superintendent  of  the  Life  Sav- 


152  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

ing  Service  who  is  annually  directing  the  underpaid 
federal  employes  who  save  hundreds  of  lives,  or 
whether  it  is  the  chief  of  the  Bureau  of  Chemistry 
that  enforces  the  pure  food  and  drug  law  —  wher- 
ever the  government  finds  an  organization  working 
unselfishly  to  an  end  that  is  unmistakably  for  the 
common  good,  that  organization  eventually  becomes 
a  part  of  the  federal  government.  So  the  department 
of  Trades  Agreement  of  the  National  Civic  Federa- 
tion has  only  to  prove  its  value  for  the  'government 
to  legalize  it. 

Even  the  Consumers'  League  is  not  safe.  It  may 
be  taken  over  in  time.  For  it  is  awakening  buyers 
to  the  cruelty  of  late  shopping  in  the  Christmas 
season;  it  is  working  for  a  shorter  day  for  women; 
and  through  its  influence  Louis  D.  Brandeis  of  Boston 
gave  his  services  as  ancillary  counsel  of  the  attorney- 
general  of  Oregon,  and  directed  the  work  of  prepar- 
ing the  brief  upon  which  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court  rested  a  unanimous  decision  in  favor  of  the 
law  which  limits  the  hours  of  labor  for  women  and 
children;  so  that  now  no  legislator  need  refuse  to 
support  a  short-hours  bill  for  women  and  children  on 
the  grounds  of  its  constitutionality.  And  the  work 
of  the  twenty-six  leagues  under  the  National  League 
in  twenty-two  states  is  now  turned  toward  securing 


THE   LEAVEN   IN   THE  NATIONAL  LUMP      153 

state  laws  in  harmony  with  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court  decision.  When  one  considers  the  crass 
brute  force  of  the  organized  greed  which  this  league 
is  opposing,  with  its  meager  funds,  and  its  simple 
faith,  one  longs  to  see  the  combat  quicken  to  its 
inevitable  end.  For  it  will  be  an  object  lesson  in  the 
impotence  of  wealth  and  material  power  that  will 
put  heart  into  millions  of  men  and  women  who  fear 
to  trust  their  instincts.1  Coordinate  with  the  Con- 
sumers' League,  but  in  no  way  related  to  it,  is  the 
Legal  Aid  Society,  with  branches  in  New  York, 
Boston,  Chicago,  Philadelphia,  Denver,  Cleveland, 
Hoboken,  Cincinnati,  Rochester,  Buffalo,  Newark, 
Washington,  Portland,  New  Rochelle,  San  Francisco, 
and  Los  Angeles.  This  society  seeks  to  redress 
without  cost  the  legal  wrongs  to  the  poor,  and  in 
New  York  alone  it  handles  about  thirty  thousand 
cases  and  recovers  from  the  oppressors  of  the  poor 
nearly  $100,000  annually.  It  has  the  seed  of  a  state 
activity,  and  even  now  free  legal  advice  for  the 
people  is  being  agitated  by  certain  bar  associations. 

The  obvious  altruism  of  organizations  like  this  in 
our  democracy  indicates  a  spirit  of  mutual  helpful- 
ness in  the  hearts  of  the  people,  which  makes  it  seem 

'See  "Some  Ethical  Gains  through  Legislation,"  by  Florence 
Kelley.    Published  by  Macmillan. 


154      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

queer  that  with  all  our  local  charitable  organizations 
spending  millions  to  help  the  needy,  the  Salvation 
Army  is  almost  the  only  organization  with  a  national 
scope  which  makes  it  a  business  to  look  after  the 
poor.  For  our  poverty  is  interstate,  as  much  as  our 
commerce,  and  until  it  is  handled  with  a  national 
spirit  and  studied  from  the  broad  national  outlook, 
its  causes  will  not  be  thoroughly  understood.  So 
while  the  Salvation  Army  spends  annually  nearly  a 
million  dollars  upon  the  nation's  poor,  feeding  three 
hundred  thousand  of  them  at  Christmas  dinners,  fur- 
nishing daily  work  for  over  one  thousand,  and  supply- 
ing during  a  year  over  two  million  beds,  and  support- 
ing one  hundred  industrial  homes,  wood  yards,  and 
employment  stores  and  twenty-one  rescue  homes, 
still  this  is  but  a  fraction  of  the  work  needed.  The 
establishment  of  the  Pittsburg  Foundation  for  the 
study  of  the  social  and  economic  condition  of  the 
wage-earning  classes  probably  marks  the  beginning 
of  a  deeper  and  saner  interest  in  our  national  poverty, 
and  its  causes  and  possible  cures,  than  we  have  had 
before.  For  our  sense  of  national  charity  must 
awaken  and  have  a  being  as  definite  as  any  other 
organ  of  our  national  spirit.  The  Pittsburg  Foun- 
dation at  least  has  done  this:  it  has  shown  that  we 
have  a  national  system  —  an  American  system  —  of 


THE  LEAVEN  IN  THE  NATIONAL  LUMP      155 

dealing  with  labor.  That  system  makes  labor  bear 
the  charges  of  breakage  and  wreckage  and  wear  and 
tear  in  labor.  But  when  once  the  American  people 
understand  that  this  system  is  peculiar  to  us,  that 
other  nations  compel  the  different  trades  to  bear  the 
expense  of  wear  and  tear  and  breakage  of  men  as  they 
bear  the  wear  and  tear  and  breakage  of  machinery, 
our  system  will  change;  the  employers'  liability  will  be 
legally  established,  and  the  mockery  of  damage  suits 
in  federal  courts  by  maimed  employees  against  their 
negligent  employers  will  cease;  the  doctrine  of  the 
assumed  risk  of  the  laborer  in  any  trade  will  vanish; 
and  at  least  one  fruitful  source  of  poverty  —  the 
maintenance  of  the  crippled  —  will  disappear.  Those 
in  charge  of  the  Pittsburg  survey  now  seem  to  think 
that  the  city  "is  the  only  thing  big  enough  to  counter- 
balance organized  industry,  and  make  life  sane  and 
normal  and  beautiful."  But  perhaps  when  the 
national  government  feels  the  impulse  of  the  people 
who  have  been  enlightened  by  the  saddest  facts  in 
all  our  statistics,  the  nation  may  leave  the  city  less 
to  do  than  they  think  who  see  the  situation  to-day. ' 
It  is  reasonable  to  believe  that  this  century  may 

1  The  efforts  of  Mrs.  Russell  Sage,  Mr.  Carnegie,  and  Mr.  Rocke- 
feller to  inquire  into  poverty  scientifically  and  from  a  national 
viewpoint  seem  to  indicate  that  some  sense  of  our  economic  and 
social  status  is  permeating  the  nation. 


156      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

see  an  improvement  in  the  condition  of  the  weak 
and  defenseless  in  our  industrial  system  which  the 
last  century  saw  in  the  care  of  the  mentally  and 
morally  and  physically  infirm  and  helpless.  The 
state  has  advanced  so  far  in  its  care  of  insane,  of  deaf 
and  blind,  of  the  morally  imperfect,  that  millions  of 
dollars  are  spent  upon  these  unfortunate  people. 
The  best  thought  of  the  best  scientists  of  the  nation 
is  given  them  freely  and  willingly,  and  no  tax  upon 
the  people  is  so  gratefully  paid  as  that  which  goes  to 
make  existence  easier  for  our  feebler  kin.  And  im- 
provement is  moving  so  rapidly  that  we  who  do  not 
watch  it  scarcely  realize  that  the  state  separates  its 
insane  into  groups,  that  it  generally  paroles  its  first 
offending  criminals,  that  it  allows  no  children  in  jail, 
that  it  has  all  but  stopped  prison  horrors,  and  that 
the  punitive  spirit  is  passing  from  all  of  our  legal 
institutions.  Says  Secretary  Alexander  Johnson  of 
the  National  Conference  of  Charities  and  Correc- 
tions: "You  may  fairly  state  that  on  the  whole 
there  is  a  trend  toward  good  business  administration 
(of  our  prisons  and  charitable  institutions)  with  the 
elimination  of  partisanship."  The  people  are  get- 
ting what  they  ask  for.  The  private  neglect  of  ages 
and  public  abuses  of  the  middle  years  of  the  last 
century  are  giving  way  to  the  expression  of  the 


THE  LEAVEN  IN  THE  NATIONAL  LUMP      157 

public  sympathy  and  generous  care.  And  what  the 
people  feel  for  the  helpless  they  will  feel  for  those 
who  are  ground  to  helplessness  in  our  industrial  life. 
The  altruism  of  our  national  character  as  citizens  of 
a  democracy  may  find  a  way  to  do  what  economists 
and  legal  doctrinaires  have  not  been  able  to  accom- 
plish. The  service  pension  system  and  general  wel- 
fare work  for  the  employes  is  coming  into  our  rail- 
roads as  a  voluntary  establishment  so  rapidly  that 
its  legalization  will  hardly  mark  a  practical  advance 
when  it  comes.  Within  five  years  the  service  pen- 
sion has  come  to  the  railroad  employes  on  systems 
aggregating  nearly  one  fifth  of  the  mileage  of  the 
United  States,  and  welfare  work  is  now  done  for  the 
employes  of  practically  every  American  railroad. 

An  admirable  (because  it  is  in  a  sense  typical) 
instance  of  what  great  aggregations  of  capital  are 
doing  for  their  employes  is  found  in  the  situation 
indicated  by  the  remarks  of  Mr.  George  B.  Cortelyou 
at  the  tenth  annual  meeting  of  the  National  Civic 
Federation  in  November,  1909.  He  said  in  part, 
speaking  of  the  Consolidated  Gas  Company  of  New 
York,  of  which  he  is  president:  "The  Company 
manifests  interest  in  its  employees  in  three  ways: 
first,  by  assisting  them  in  maintaining  an  employees' 
Aid   Society;    second,    by   providing   annuities   for 


158  THE   OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

superannuated  employees ;  third,  by  making  allow- 
ances for  vacations  and  sickness.  The  Company 
maintains  for  its  employees  what  is  called  a  Mor- 
tuary Fund.  Each  member  pays  fifty  cents  per 
month,  and  at  death  his  beneficiaries  receive  the  sum 
of  $300.  Towards  this  fund  the  Company  contrib- 
utes one  half  of  the  amount  paid  in  by  the  em- 
ployees as  dues.  Upon  leaving  the  service  of  the 
Company  the  employee  receives  back  all  that  he  has 
paid  into  this  fund,  without  interest. 

"Also  there  is  maintained  a  Friendly  Aid  Fund 
for  the  benefit  of  the  employees.  Into  this  fund 
each  employee  pays  thirty  cents  per  month,  or  $3.60 
a  year.  For  this  amount  the  member  is  entitled 
during  sickness  or  disability  to  $6  each  week  for 
twelve  weeks  in  any  one  year.  The  Company  also 
contributes  one  half  of  the  amount  paid  in  by  the 
employees  as  dues,  and  also  pays  the  salaries,  ex- 
penses, and  medicines  of  the  physicians  who  attend 
the  sick  members  of  this  society.  Upon  leaving  the 
service  of  the  Company  the  employee  receives  back 
the  amount  paid  into  the  fund  without  interest, 
less  the  amount  he  may  have  received  for  such  bene- 
fits. Membership  in  both  of  these  organizations  is 
wholly  voluntary.  In  addition  to  the  foregoing,  both 
of  these  funds  have  become  possessed  of  a  surplus 


THE  LEAVEN   IN   THE  NATIONAL  LUMP     159 

cash  balance,  which  is  invested  with  the  Company 
temporarily,  and  on  which  the  Company  obligates 
itself  to  pay  five  per  cent  interest. 

"  Employees  who  give  thirty-five  years  of  service 
are,  if  incapacitated  for  further  work,  entitled,  at 
the  discretion  of  the  Company,  to  be  placed  on  the 
superannuated  list.  The  usual  course  is  to  compute 
the  allowance  made  at  one  per  cent  for  each  year  of 
service,  based  on  the  average  pay  for  the  five  years 
preceding  retirement.  For  example:  An  employee 
has  been  forty  years  in  service  and  has  received 
during  the  past  five  years  an  amount  of  $20  per 
week.  If  upon  examination  by  the  Company's 
physician  he  is  found  to  be  incapacitated  for  further 
service,  the  Treasurer  makes  recommendation,  based 
on  the  application  of  the  Superintendent  of  the  De- 
partment in  which  the  employee  has  been  working, 
that  he  be  placed  upon  the  Superannuation  List  at 
forty  per  cent  of  the  $20,  equal  to  $8  per  week, 
which  amount  is  paid  by  check  on  the  first  day  of 
each  month.  The  beneficiary  can  live  wherever  he 
pleases  and  is  not  required  to  report  to  the  Company 
other  than  by  the  receipt  for  the  checks  sent.  The 
Company  pursues  a  liberal  policy  in  the  matter  of 
vacations  for  absence  on  account  of  sickness. 

"The  ordinary  plan  of  relief  in  case  of  sickness 


160      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

or  disability  other  than  by  accident  is  this:  one 
month  of  full  pay  or  two  months  of  half  pay  is  al- 
lowed for  each  five  years  of  service.  For  example, 
an  employee  who  has  been  twenty-five  years  in  the 
service  of  the  Company  and  is  taken  sick  is  examined 
by  the  Company's  physician  and  report  made  to  the 
Treasurer.  Upon  that  report  an  allowance  of  sick 
benefit  is  given  him  from  time  to  time  to  provide 
full  pay  (counting  in  the  $6  per  week  from  the  Friendly 
Aid  Society)  for  five  months,  or  half  pay  for  ten 
months.  At  the  end  of  the  five  or  ten  months  a 
new  examination  is  made,  and  if  the  employee  is 
still  disabled,  either  a  special  additional  allowance  is 
made,  or  he  is  dropped  from  the  rolls.  In  disability 
from  accident  each  case  is  carefully  considered  by 
the  proper  officers  and  action  taken  based  upon  the 
circumstances.  It  is  the  policy  of  the  Company  to 
deal  generously  with  its  employees." 

Here  we  see  the  socialization  of  capital  itself. 
The  democratic  movement  is  by  no  means  —  or 
even  largely  —  confined  to  the  poor.  Neither  is 
capital  the  property  of  the  rich.  Capital  is  the 
savings  of  all  classes;  democracy  is  the  altruism  of 
all  classes,  and  even  in  capital  itself  we  find  the 
abnegation  of  democracy.  Moreover,  capital  is  find- 
ing that  altruism  pays ;  the  service  pension  is  a  good 


THE   LEAVEN   IN  THE   NATIONAL  LUMP      161 

thing  for  capital.  And  in  the  industries  experience 
has  proved  that  the  service  pension  and  the  welfare 
work  pay  —  and  that  guarantees  their  adoption. 
When  the  economic  value  of  kindness  is  demonstrated, 
the  instinct  of  democracy  to  help  the  needy  will 
have  no  political  opposition. 

A  generation  ago  when  the  college  curriculum  be- 
gan to  broaden  and  the  laboratory  began  to  take  an 
important  place  in  college  life,  educated  men  bewailed 
the  material  spirit  of  our  education.  There  was  a 
movement  to  force  education  back  to  the  humanities, 
back  to  culture,  back  to  "the  sweet  serenity  of  books." 
But  now  the  laboratory  is  returning  to  the  democracy 
that  founded  it,  the  service  that  is  due.  Our  scientific 
societies  are  almost  purely  altruistic.  The  health 
and  well-being  of  the  masses  is  engaging  scientists 
all  over  the  nation.  A  score  of  scientific  societies, 
state  and  national,  have  as  their  reason  of  being  some 
improvement  in  our  public  life.  The  Society  for  the 
Prevention  of  Tuberculosis  is  doing  effective  work  in 
Washington,  Oregon,  California,  North  Dakota,  South 
Dakota,  Minnesota,  Kansas,  Nebraska,  Texas,  Okla- 
homa, Arkansas,  Louisiana,  Alabama,  Florida,  Ten- 
nessee, Missouri,  Illinois,  Pennsylvania,  Rhode  Island, 
Connecticut,  Maine,  and  West  Virginia,  where  effect- 
ive campaigns  for  state  appropriations  to  stop  the 


162      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

spread  of  the  disease  are  waging.  Appropriations  of 
over  $4,000,000  for  the  suppression  of  consumption 
have  been  made  by  twenty-eight  state  legislatures 
in  session  during  the  year  1909,  as  the  direct  result  of 
work  done  by  the  National  Association  for  the  Study 
and  Prevention  of  Tuberculosis. 

In  1909,  forty- three  state  and  territorial  legisla- 
tures were  in  session.  Of  this  number  twenty-eight 
passed  sixty-four  laws  pertaining  to  tuberculosis; 
eight  others  considered  such  legislation,  and  in  only 
seven  states  no  measures  about  consumption  were 
presented. 

Of  the  sixty-four  laws  passed,  fourteen  were  in 
reference  to  building  new  state  institutions.  New 
state  sanatoria  for  tuberculosis  will  be  built  in  Penn- 
sylvania, Connecticut,  where  three  will  be  erected, 
Arkansas,  Oregon,  South  Dakota,  North  Dakota, 
and  Florida.  In  New  York,  North  Carolina,  In- 
diana, Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire,  and  Maine, 
appropriations  have  been  made  for  enlarging  sanatoria 
already  being  built  or  in  operation.  There  are  now 
twenty-seven  states  where  such  institutions  have  been 
established.  Every  state  east  of  the  Mississippi, 
except  Illinois,  West  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Tennessee, 
South  Carolina,  and  Mississippi  have  provided  hos- 
pitals for  tuberculosis  patients. 


THE  LEAVEN   IN   THE  NATIONAL  LUMP      163 

Five  states,  Illinois,  New  York,  Ohio,  Minnesota, 
and  Iowa,  passed  laws  giving  their  county  officers 
power  to  erect  tuberculosis  sanatoria  without  resort- 
ing to  a  special  vote.  In  Maine,  Connecticut,  Rhode 
Island,  New  Jersey,  Michigan,  Iowa,  and  Kansas  laws 
providing  for  the  strict  reporting  and  registration  of 
tuberculosis  were  passed.  Only  five  other  states,  in- 
cluding the  District  of  Columbia,  have  such  laws. 
The  National  Association  considers  laws  of  this 
character  as  the  first  requisite  in  an  organized  move- 
ment against  tuberculosis. 

Ten  states  have  this  year  granted  nearly  $100,000 
to  be  spent  only  for  the  education  of  the  public  about 
tuberculosis.  During  the  past  year  fully  one  third 
of  the  $4,000,000  appropriated  this  year  is  by  special 
legislation  and  for  new  work.  The  last  Congress  ap- 
propriated, in  addition  to  this  sum,  nearly  $1,000,000 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  three  federal  sanatoria  in 
New  Mexico  and  Colorado.  It  is  estimated  besides 
that  the  numerous  county  and  municipal  appropria- 
tions made  or  to  be  made  for  tuberculosis  work  for 
next  year  will  aggregate  at  least  '$3,000,000,  mak- 
ing the  official  public  expenditures  in  the  United 
States  for  the  wiping  out  of  tuberculosis  at  least 
$8,000,000. 

And  all  this  practical  manifestation  of  altruism, 


164  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

the  large  unselfishness,  good  will,  or  whatever  it  may 
be  called,  comes  from  the  energies  of  less  than  a 
thousand  active  men  and  women  largely  from  college 
laboratories  devoting  not  money  but  personal  service 
—  their  very  lives  to  this  good  work.  Ten  million 
in  gift  money  would  not  have  achieved  so  much. 
"The  sweet  serenity  of  books"  never  has  done  so 
much  for  this  world  in  so  short  a  time. 

From  the  other  end  of  the  college  campus,  the  stu- 
dents of  economics  are  coming  into  public  life  and  one 
group  of  them  has  formed  and  is  maintaining  the 
National  Tax  Association,  the  Economic  Association, 
and  the  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social 
Science,  which  hold  national  conferences  and  are 
gathering  most  valuable  data  and  forming  most  im- 
portant conclusions  in  economics  and  sociology.  The 
future  work  of  these  and  similar  associations  will  be 
inestimable.  But  it  is  altogether  unselfish.  There 
is  not  a  dollar  in  it  for  any  one.  Like  all  of  the  great 
American  democratic  movements  the  study  of  eco- 
nomics is  for  the  good  of  the  many  at  the  sacrifice  of 
the  few.  And  it  is  but  one  of  a  score  of  the  activities 
of  men  from  the  broader  college  and  greater  univer- 
sity which  democracy  is  establishing  all  over  the  land, 
by  local  taxes  or  private  gifts. 

The  organization  known  as  "The  Joint  Committee 


THE  LEAVEN   IN  THE  NATIONAL  LUMP    165 

on  Conservation"  furnishes  an  admirable  illustration 
of  what  organized  goodwill  can  do.  The  joint  com- 
mittee was  organized  in  the  spring  of  1908  at  a  con- 
ference of  governors  called  at  the  White  House  by 
President  Roosevelt.  Since  that  time  official  state 
conservation  commissions  have  been  appointed  by 
the  governors  of  forty  states,  and  conservation  com- 
mittees have  been  named  by  fifty  of  the  big  na- 
tional organizations  of  the  country.  There  was  a 
second  conference  of  governors  and  presidents  of 
national  organizations,  and  there  is  now  a  North 
American  Conservation  Conference,  consisting  of 
commissioners  from  Canada,  Mexico,  and  the  United 
States.  Moreover  plans  are  well  under  way  for  a 
World^Conservation  Congress  to  be  held  at  The  Hague. 
This  has  all  grown  from  the  unselfish  work  of  less 
than  one  hundred  men,  mostly  college  men  originally, 
devoted  to  the  cause  of  saving  our  forests  and  mines 
and  rivers.  They  have  spent  little  money,  but  they 
have  given  the  best  service  that  trained  minds  and 
tireless  bodies  could  give. 

We  have  seen  in  passing  but  a  few  of  the  hundreds 
of  activities  of  the  Americans  as  they  are  organized  for 
mutual  help.  But  these  activities  are  so  many,  and 
the  organizations  so  widespread  that  scarcely  a  citizen 
escapes  them.    Whatever  his  inspiration  to  aid  his 


166      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

fellow  may  be,  he  finds  it  organized,  and  in  some  or- 
ganization he  finds  outlet  for  the  desire  to  help,  to  be 
of  use  in  the  world,  to  satisfy  his  soul  by  service.  And 
so  these  societies  and  associations  and  conferences 
and  conventions  and  assemblies  do  threefold  duty. 
First  they  express  public  sentiment  after  the  parlia- 
mentary fashion  of  the  old  Aryan,  who  moved  after 
"the  most  ancient  ways"  in  due  form  and  order. 
Again  they  develop  in  Americans  the  self-sacrifice 
and  self-control  and  high  altruism  that  is  necessary 
for  a  permanent  democracy.  And  finally  they  also 
unify  the  nation.  For  these  organizations  are  na- 
tional, and  men  of  all  sections  meet  one  another  and 
work  for  the  common  good,  as  Americans,  knowing 
no  section,  caste,  or  special  interest.  But  most  of  all 
these  societies  and  organizations  help  the  man  who 
helps.  It  was  the  Samaritan  rather  than  he  who  fell 
among  thieves  who  was  benefited  by  the  kindness  on 
the  Jericho  road.  And  so  we,  who  by  the  millions  are 
manning  these  societies  for  the  betterment  of  our  kind, 
are  helping  ourselves  more,  perhaps,  than  those  we 
would  help.  The  just  sympathy  strike  may  help  the 
sympathizer,  make  him  bigger,  manlier,  nobler,  even 
though  it  does  not  help  the  first  striker.  Likewise, 
thousands  of  men  are  helping  their  souls  as  they  help 
others  fight  tuberculosis  in  their  bodies.   And  so  with 


THE  LEAVEN   IN   THE  NATIONAL  LUMP     167 

all  our  reforming  of  conditions  about  us,  by  the  mil- 
lions and  millions  we  are  first  of  all  reforming  our- 
selves. We  are  promoting  democracy  by  forgetting 
ourselves  in  the  thought  of  others.  This  self-abnega- 
tion is  the  greatest  movement  in  our  national  life. 
And  at  bottom  all  this  desire  to  heal  our  souls  is  but 
the  prick  of  the  national  conscience.  The  movement 
in  our  national  politics  toward  the  more  equitable 
distribution  of  our  common  wealth  is  from  the  Puri- 
tan's conscience.  It  is  not  solely,  perhaps  not  even 
chiefly,  from  those  who  are  wronged,  it  is  from  all 
classes.  The  conscience  of  the  people  knows  no  class. 
And  until  the  conscience  is  satisfied  desire  for  re- 
form will  not  abate.  This  movement  for  equity  — 
for  democracy  in  our  national  life  —  is  not  a  craze. 
The  reform  movement  is  a  deep  tendency  of  our  life; 
it  is  our  mysterious  link  with  the  infinite  body  of  hu- 
manity —  the  body  in  which,  through  some  strange 
spiritual  alchemy,  the  good  of  one  is  the  good  of  all. 
The  Divine  leaven  in  a  sordid  generation,  which  in  the 
end  shall  leaven  the  whole  lump,  is  our  national  in- 
heritance through  the  home,  from  the  mother  of  our 
own  blood,  brought  to  this  continent  as  equal  and 
partner  through  great  suffering  and  sacrifice  to  make 
a  nation.  This  social  leaven  in  so  much  as  it  is  in- 
stinctive and  emotional  is  feminine;    in  that  it  is 


168  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

dominant  and  masterful  it  is  bred  of  men.  But  what- 
ever this  conscience  of  democracy  is,  it  is  binding  us 
into  a  closer  national  union  than  we  have  known 
before,  making  us  one  blood  in  our  common  aspiration. 
And  thus  a  race  is  renewing  itself. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   SCHOOLS  THE   MAINSPRING   OF   DEMOCRACY 

There  is  grave  danger  that  the  advocate  of  funda- 
mental democracy  will  make  a  fetish  of  it.  Seeing 
what  the  secret  ballot  will  do,  what  the  direct  primary 
will  do,  what  the  purging  of  the  party  system  will  do, 
what  direct  legislation  will  do,  and  what  all  the  state 
commissions  and  city  charters  and  parliamentary 
organizations  propagating  the  altruistic  second  self 
of  the  nation  will  do,  the  man  who  observes  these  signs 
and  wonders  of  this  latter  day  is  liable  to  forget  what 
the  sound,  strong,  righteous  sense  of  the  citizenship 
that  made  all  these  signs  and  wonders  will  do  —  may 
do  even  without  these  things.  The  protagonist  in  the 
drama  of  democracy  often  is  blinded  by  the  limelight 
of  his  own  cause.  He  finds  it  hard  to  realize  that  free 
institutions  do  not  make  free  men,  but  that  free  men 
make  free  institutions.  The  truth  lies  some  place 
between  Hamilton  and  Jefferson,  the  strict  Republican 
and  the  uncompromising  Democrat.  And  probably 
Hamilton  would  have  stated  the  truth  when  he  wrote 
that  "the  general  genius  of  a  government  is  all  that 

169 


170  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

can  be  substantially  relied  upon  for  permanent 
effects,"  if  he  had  written  instead,  "the  general  ge- 
nius" of  a  people,  for  government,  "is  all  that  can  be 
relied  upon  substantially  for  permanent  effects." 

And  in  this  American  nation  if  the  student  of  the 
times  would  go  to  the  bottom  of  our  institutions,  he 
would  find  that  we  have  changed  and  are  changing 
the  form  and  constitution  of  our  state  and  national 
institutions.  He  would  find  that  despite  the  federal 
Constitution  we  are  electing  our  Presidents  by  a 
direct  vote,  and  more  than  half  of  our  United  States 
senators  by  a  direct  vote,  thus  bringing  our  federal 
courts  nearer  to  the  populace.  He  would  further 
find  that  we  are  turning  our  state  affairs  over  to  com- 
missions of  experts  and  our  city  affairs  over  to  direct 
representatives  with  great  power  and  often  under  the 
recall.  And  yet  in  the  face  of  these  changes  the  stu- 
dent of  the  times  would  find  that  we  are  conducting 
the  public  schools  after  the  ancient  ways.  In  the 
United  States  we  spend  nearly  a  half  billion  dollars 
every  year  for  schools  —  mostly  in  direct  taxes.  And 
those  direct  taxes  are  levied  by  men  elected  by  a 
direct  vote  of  the  people.  It  is  primitive  folk-rule; 
yet  the  sum  we  raise  thus  is  the  largest  single  item 
in  the  tax  budget,  direct  or  indirect,  that  we  raise 
under  the  government.     Moreover,  it  is  the  only  fund 


SCHOOLS  THE  MAINSPRING  OF  DEMOCRACY      171 

in  our  system  of  government  that  is  so  carefully 
watched  that  dishonesty  and  extravagance  do  not 
waste  it  materially.  The  strongest  instinct  of  this 
nation  —  one  might  almost  call  it  an  obsession  — 
is  the  instinct  for  education.  So  as  a  people  we  have 
kept  the  common  schools  separate  from  the  other 
branches  of  our  various  governments.  Anarchy 
might  wipe  out  our  federal  government,  and  in  the 
disorder  the  state  institutions  might  suspend;  even 
the  cities  and  counties  might  be  paralyzed  in  the  ca- 
lamity. But  in  all  the  political  upheaval  the  ma- 
chinery of  our  public  schools  would  not  be  affected 
seriously.  The  $475,000,000  school  tax  would  be 
collected,  the  half  million  school-teachers  would  go  to 
work  every  morning,  and  the  eighteen  million  students 
would  keep  on  preparing  themselves  to  resist  whatever 
tyranny  and  oppression  and  injustice  the  political 
cataclysm  about  them  might  produce.  The  framers 
of  the  Constitution,  with  all  their  fine  system  of  checks 
and  balances,  clearly  overlooked  the  mainspring  of  the 
whole  mechanism  of  democracy,  and  left  it  unham- 
pered. It  is  practically  the  only  political  institu- 
tion which  is  not  in  some  way  subject  to  more  or 
less  complex  control  and  interference  by  the  state 
or  the  Nation.  And  slowly  as  the  people  have 
grown  in  intellectual  strength,  they  have  removed 


172  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

the  checks  and  balances  put  upon  the  democratic 
majorities  in  all  wisdom  by  the  fathers.  It  is  absurd 
to  say  that  when  the  schools  have  made  men  worthier 
than  they  were  and  than  they  are,  safely  to  handle 
larger  affairs,  men  will  not  find  a  simple  way  to  reach 
the  larger  affairs.  Constitutions  are  not  amended 
by  wars  —  monarchies  and  kings  are  curbed  by  wars. 
Constitutions  are  amended  by  the  moral  and  intellec- 
tual growth  of  the  people  living  under  them. 

Therefore  it  will  be  well  for  one  who  desires  to  see 
the  wheels  of  the  American  government  go  'round,  to 
look  at  the  power  that  makes  them  go.  "The  Amer- 
can  people,"  says  President  Butler,  of  Columbia 
University,  "  are  almost  Socratic  in  their  acceptance 
of  the  principle  that  knowledge  will  lead  to  right  and 
useful  action;  and  if  the  formula  be  not  pressed  too 
far,  the  American  conviction  as  to  education  is  quite 
defensible."1  At  least  it  will  not  be  pressing  the 
formula  too  far  to  maintain  that  if  education  produces 
the  power  that  makes  the  demagogue,  it  also  makes 
the  common  sense  of  the  people  who  soon  grow  weary 
of  him.  Therefrom  we  may  argue  that  whatever 
substantial  growth  there  has  been  in  our  institutions, 
—  and  one  must  admit  that  they  have  grown,  —  this 

1 "  The  American  as  He  Is,"  p.  68,  by  Nicholas  Murray  Butler. 
Published  by  Macmillan. 


SCHOOLS  THE   MAINSPRING  OF  DEMOCRACY     173 

growth  has  come  because  the  people  have  broadened 
their  moral  vision  by  reason  of  their  widening  infor- 
mation. Schools  have  disseminated  knowledge. 
Knowledge  directed  the  normally  uneasy  Puritan  con- 
science, and  the  people  have  grown  powerful  in  so  far 
as  they  have  grown  just.  Thus  the  net  income  from 
our  annual  investment  of  half  a  billion  dollars  in 
education  may  be  reckoned  in  terms  of  justice.  So 
let  us  go  to  the  account,  and  look  at  the  books.  To 
begin  let  us  consider  the  gross  liabilities:  There  are 
twenty-four  millions  of  students,  who  according  to  the 
school  census  of  1907  are  of  school  age  (that  is,  between 
five  and  twenty-one)  and  should  be  in  school,  using 
an  educational  plant  valued  at  one  and  a  half  billions 
of  dollars.  The  report  of  the  Commissioner  of  Educa- 
tion for  1907  (p.  524)  indicates  that  only  eighteen  mil- 
lions of  them  are  enrolled  in  school,  sixteen  millions  of 
them  (p.  544)  being  enrolled  in  the  common  schools, 
with  an  average  daily  attendance  of  nearly  twelve  mil- 
lions. But  that  gross  liability  is  overstated.  For  in 
the  shrinkage  between  the  total  population  from  five  to 
twenty-one  years  old,  and  the  total  school  enrollment, 
there  are  the  Southern  negroes  whose  education  is 
largely  unprovided  for,  and  there  are  the  children  under 
eight  years  old  who  often  are  kept  from  school  by 
their  parents.     So  that  with  our  great  plant,  worth 


174  THE   OLD   ORDER  CHANGETH 

over  a  billion,  and  with  our  four  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  million  dollar  annual  outgo,  we  are  reaching  prob- 
ably considerably  more  than  three-fourths  of  the 
number  of  actual  school  children  from  six  to  eighteen 
years  old  for  whom  the  taxes  were  levied.  This  does 
not  mean  that  one-fourth  of  our  people  are  illiterate. 
But  it  does  mean  that  for  some  reason  one-fourth  of 
them  are  not  getting  an  equipment  for  citizenship  that 
they  should  get,  and  that  the  taxpayers  should  pro- 
vide for  them.  Yet  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  our 
schools  are  crowded  and  that  every  child  is  in  school 
for  whom  we  have  provided  desk  room  and  teachers. 
But  there  seems  to  be  no  doubt  also  that,  we  should 
provide  more  desk  room  and  either  more  teachers  or 
better  paid  teachers  to  attract  and  hold  the  children 
who  leave  school  in  their  early  teens.  Nor  is  this  all. 
Though  education  is  practically  free  in  America,  and 
as  the  opportunity  to  earn  one's  way  through  college 
is  wide,  it  is  astonishing  to  note  from  the  report  just 
referred  to  (p.  525)  that  only  3,000  persons  annually 
receive  post-graduate  degrees  from  our  colleges  and 
free  universities,  and  that  only  25,000  of  the  twenty- 
four  million  available  students  annually  complete  the 
four  years'  college  course.  And  now  let  Gradgrind 
gorge  himself  with  facts:  Assuming  that  the  average 
life  of  the  college  graduate  and  his  post-graduate  as- 


SCHOOLS  THE  MAINSPRING  OF  DEMOCRACY      175 

sociate  is  thirty  years  out  of  college,  we  may  assume 
that  the  generation  now  opening  will  be  manned  with 
a  million  men  and  women  who  have  at  least  finished 
their  college  work.  Assuming  that  the  same  number 
of  juniors,  sophomores,  and  freshmen  leave  school  an- 
nually— about  25,000  in  each  class  —  that  are  gradu- 
ated annually,  we  may  add  three  million  more  to  the 
total,  making  four  million  college  men  and  women 
who  will  participate  in  our  national  life  during  the 
first  thirty  years  of  this  century.  Add  to  these  four 
million  college-bred  men  and  women  the  one  hundred 
and  sixty  thousand  high  school  graduates  who  the 
report  above  mentioned  says  (p.  525)  are  entering 
life  every  year,  and  the  present  generation  may  reason- 
ably be  computed  to  hold  five  million  persons  who 
have  taken  full  advantage  of  the  common  schools  sup- 
ported by  direct  taxes  upon  all  of  the  people.  Add 
to  this  total  those  who  annually  drop  out  from  the 
four  lower  classes  of  the  high  school  —  a  list  as  large 
from  each  class  as  the  annual  graduating  class  —  and 
one  has  fifteen  million  others  who  have  come  into  a 
somewhat  wider  field  of  knowledge  than  that  afforded 
by  the  grade  schools.  Let  us  add  to  them  for  thirty 
years  the  three-quarters  of  a  million  pupils  who,  ac- 
cording to  the  report  (p.  525)  complete  the  work  in 
the  seventh  or  eighth  grades  of  the  elementary  schools. 


176      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

There  will  be  22,500,000  of  them.  Now  adding  all 
these  sums  —  allowing  for  the  increase  in  population 
to  increase  the  number  of  youths  as  the  years  go  on  — 
and  we  have  about  fifty  million  Americans  who  have 
remained  in  school  into  the  midst  of  their  teens  — 
something  like  two-fifths  of  our  probable  population  in 
the  next  thirty  years.  This  is  not  enough.  Democ- 
racy may  live,  but  it  cannot  thrive  upon  that  basis. 
If  we  are  to  solve  the  problem  of  the  century  —  the 
restriction  of  ignorance  and  greed  in  our  business 
organization  —  we  must  solve  it  in  the  schoolhouse 
rather  than  in  the  legislature  or  in  the  courtroom. 
So  long  as  there  is  a  body  of  the  people  ignorant,  that 
ignorance  will  breed  a  greed  that  will  be  duped  by 
demagogy,  and  the  greed  equipped  by  cunning  always 
will  outwit  greed  equipped  by  ignorance.  The  prob- 
lems that  this  nation  has  solved  have  been  for  the 
most  part  simple  problems.  They  were  problems  in 
production  of  wealth.  It  is  true  that  the  abolition  of 
slavery  concerned  the  distribution  of  wealth.  It 
required  only  simple  subtraction.  But  to  deal  justly 
with  capital  in  its  public  uses,  to  say  what  is  the  indi- 
vidual's share  in  the  public  partnership  and  what  is 
the  share  of  the  commonwealth  —  that  is  long  divi- 
sion. As  a  nation,  at  least,  we  must  get  into  the 
eighth  grade.  Perhaps  the  average  now  is  nearer 
the  sixth  than  the  eighth. 


SCHOOLS  THE  MAINSPRING  OF  DEMOCRACY      177 

And  so  there  comes  into  the  life  of  too  large  a  per 
cent  of  our  boys  and  girls  four  or  five  waste  years  — 
the  years  between  thirteen  and  eighteen.  These 
waste  years  hold  in  them  the  real  dangers  of  our 
democracy.  For  out  of  school  the  boy  at  least  is 
worthless.  Says  Charles  S.  Morse,  executive  officer 
of  the  Massachusetts  Commission  on  Industrial 
Education:  "If  the  boy  goes  out  to  attempt  to  learn 
a  trade  at  fourteen  years  of  age,  the  manufacturer 
says,  'I  do  not  want  you  in  my  factory,'  and  the 
manufacturer  will  not  employ  the  boy  except  as  an 
errand  boy.  You  ask  me  how  I  know  this.  Agents 
of  the  Massachusetts  Commission  on  Industrial 
Education  canvassed  the  state  recently,  interviewing 
some  1000  men  who  employed  thousand  upon  thou- 
sands of  men,  and  there  were  only  a  few  who  did  not 
say:  'We  do  not  want  the  fourteen-year-old  boy; 
he  is  in  our  way.     He  gets  on  our  nerves.'  " 

And  yet  two  or  three  millions  of  fourteen-year-old 
boys  and  their  sisters  —  who  are  really  worth  some- 
thing —  are  out  of  school  in  America  to-day.  They 
are  out  partly  for  economic  reasons,  the  family  needs 
their  support ;  but  the  state  needs  a  clear  mind  in  the 
ballot  booth  seven  years  later  worse  than  the  family 
needs  support,  and  the  state  might  well  afford  to  pay 
the  family  the  errand  boy's  meager  wages.    But  apart 


178  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

from  economic  forces  which  keep  the  boy  out  of 
school  during  the  waste  years  of  his  life,  there  are 
social  reasons  why  he  is  not  in  school.  And  those 
social  reasons  are  his  studies  and  his  teachers,  and  at 
the  bottom  of  all  is  the  selfishness  of  the  taxpayers. 

For  when  a  child  is  not  " doing  well"  in  school,  the 
parents  find  it  easy  to  put  him  to  work  outside.  And 
thus  of  the  fifteen  millions  of  children  who  according 
to  the  report  above  mentioned  leave  school  before  they 
complete  the  high  school  course,  probably  five  mil- 
lions leave  not  because  they  have  to  leave  to  support 
the  family,  but  because  the  parents  feel  that  the 
boys  at  least  are  better  off  working  out  of  school  than 
idling  and  wrangling  with  their  teachers  in  school. 
Generally  speaking,  the  fault  is  with  the  school 
rather  than  with  the  boy.  Certainly  the  fact  that  five 
million  boys  in  their  early  teens  do  leave  school  un- 
necessarily is  a  fact  worth  considering  in  making  up  a 
curriculum.  And  if  the  fads  and  isms  are  driving  the 
boy  from  school,  the  nation  is  the  loser.  Therefore 
the  instinct  of  the  boy  for  physical  education  as  well 
as  for  mental  training  should  be  heeded.  The  boy 
longs  for  manly  things.  He  craves  the  company  of 
men  and  the  roughness  of  men.  He  desires  to  do  some- 
thing—  to  see  something  growing  under  his  hand. 
It  is  instinctive,  and  the  most  hopeful  thing  in  our 


SCHOOLS  THE  MAINSPRING  OF  DEMOCRACY     179 

democracy  is  not  the  growth  of  the  secret  ballot,  the 
cleansed  party,  the  direct  nomination  and  direct 
legislation,  but  the  vague  and  definitely  growing 
recognition  that  the  boy's  instinct  for  practical  educa- 
tion in  his  school  is  to  be  trusted.  The  almost  univer- 
sal introduction  of  manual  training  in  some  form  into 
the  lower  grades  of  American  schools  —  giving  the 
boy  opportunity  to  work  with  his  hands  —  is  one  of 
the  most  important  symptoms  of  health  in  our  politi- 
cal organization.  The  extent  of  the  growth  of  manual 
training  in  the  country  is  surprising.  Within  ten 
years  —  coincident  with  the  other  big  democratic 
movements  —  manual  training  has  spread  to  the 
schools  of  almost  every  American  state. 

Typically  manual  training  begins  in  the  sixth  grade, 
when  the  pupils  are  coming  into  their  teens.  It  con- 
tinues through  the  eighth  grade,  and  there  in  the  larger 
of  our  American  cities  manual  training  is  diverted 
into  a  separate  building  from  the  regular  high  school 
building.  This  is  known  as  the  manual  training 
school.  There  boys  are  taught  to  use  their  hands  in 
woodwork,  stonework,  brickwork,  ironwork,  clay 
work  of  various  kinds,  and  girls  are  taught  domestic 
science.  But  these  schools  must  not  be  confused 
with  the  great  trades  schools  that  are  being  estab- 
lished in  the  cities  of  the  land  and  in  the  manufactur- 


180      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

ing  districts.  The  manual  training  schools  do  not 
teach  the  boys  trades;  they  merely  teach  them  to  use 
their  hands,  so  that  when  they  go  into  trades  they  will 
learn  easily.  The  trade  schools  make  them  appren- 
tices, and  these  trade  schools  are  found  now  in  every 
important  American  city  and  in  every  state,  either 
under  the  name  of  technical  institutes,  agricultural 
schools,  or  trade  schools.  This  chain  of  public  schools 
teaching  rough  hard  work  is  keeping  American  boys  in 
school,  and  is  doing  more  to  educate  them  for  citizen- 
ship than  any  other  force  in  the  country.  As  the 
higher  mechanical  schools  fit  into  the  school  system 
are  they  most  valuable  as  citizen  makers. 

It  is  remarkable  how  universally  this  manual  train- 
ing in  the  grades  has  come  into  our  educational  sys- 
tem. In  1908  in  addition  to  manual  training  in  the 
grades  Virginia  had  manual  departments  in  twenty-five 
high  schools.  North  Dakota  had  ten  manual  train- 
ing high  schools,  and  three  cities  in  North  Carolina 
had  adopted  manual  training  throughout  the  course; 
in  Indiana  forty  towns  and  cities  had  manual  work  in 
the  grades  with  ten  manual  training  high  schools. 
Massachusetts  taught  manual  work  in  sixty  towns 
and  had  twenty-three  manual  high  schools.  Manual 
work  was  taught  in  ten  schools.  In  the  state  of 
Washington  four  cities  taught  manual  training  in  the 


SCHOOLS  THE  MAINSPRING  OF  DEMOCRACY     181 

grades  and  seven  had  manual  high  schools;  in  Wyo- 
ming there  were  four  manual  high  schools  and  three 
graded  schools  giving  the  manual  work;  and  in  Mary- 
land it  was  introduced  into  thirty-five  high  schools 
and  three  graded  schools.  South  Dakota  has  three 
manual  training  high  schools,  and  Minnesota  gave 
manual  training  work  in  ninety-eight  schools  — 
many  of  which  were  separate  manual  training  high 
schools.  Vermont  taught  manual  training  in  the 
grades  in  seven  towns  and  Tennessee  in  five  towns.  In 
Ohio  the  State  Superintendent  of  Schools  says  that 
manual  training  is  taught  in  all  the  towns  and 
cities  and  that  there  are  many  manual  high  schools. 
Arkansas  had  three  manual  high  schools;  Florida, 
five;  Kentucky,  one;  Nebraska,  three;  New  York, 
five;  Missouri,  three;  Michigan,  ten;  and  Georgia, 
twenty-two,  and  it  is  taught  more  or  less  in  the 
grades  of  all  these  states,  as  well  as  in  Wisconsin 
and  South  Carolina.  For  a  new  movement  in  educa- 
tion —  one  which  increases  interest  in  school  for 
pupils  at  the  age  when  their  absence  from  school 
makes  for  economic  and  social  waste  —  this  tend- 
ency is  too  strong  in  America  to  be  overlooked  by  any 
student  of  our  government.  For  the  introduction 
of  manual  training  work  in  schools  means  two  im- 
portant things  to  the  boys  —  work  that  they  like  and 


182  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

teachers  that  they  like.  Boys  need  men  when  the 
boys  are  in  their  teens,  and  the  prevalence  of  women 
teachers  in  the  sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth  grades  and 
in  the  high  school  has  driven  more  boys  from  school, 
and  made  bad  citizens  to  make  bad  government,  than 
we  realize.  Of  course  these  manual  teachers  cost 
money,  they  make  schools  more  expensive;  but  ac- 
cording to  the  report  of  the  United  States  Commis- 
sioner of  Education  the  increased  cost  of  maintenance 
in  the  seventh  and  eighth  grades  has  been  met  by  an 
increase  in  attendance.  All  of  the  desks  are  full  to-day 
and  millions  of  boys  are  out  of  school  who  should  be  in 
school  and  who  would  be  in  school  if  the  schools  gave 
these  boys  desk  room  and  rough  work  with  their 
hands.  But  those  things  cost  money.  It  seems  to 
be  largely  a  question  of  how  good  a  citizenship  we 
are  willing  to  pay  for.  As  it  stands,  our  thrift  is 
overreaching  itself.     We  are  cheating  ourselves. 

And  here  we  come  to  the  problem  of  the  boy  and 
his  teacher.  The  boy  goes  to  the  pool  hall  and  the 
saloon  primarily  because  there  he  finds  men.  At 
school  he  is  surfeited  with  femininity.  Given  men 
teachers  for  the  boy  after  he  gets  into  his  teens, 
and  the  boy  will  not  be  so  ready  to  leave  school  as 
he  is.  But  teaching  is  a  profession  that  men  use  as 
a  stepping-stone  to  something  better.     It  is  not  a 


SCHOOLS  THE  MAINSPRING   OF  DEMOCRACY     183 

man's  profession,  and  wages  of  teachers  are  so  low 
that  men  cannot  afford  to  make  teaching  a  career. 
If  the  statistics  of  the  census  bureau  are  correct,  no 
extravagance  of  our  people  is  so  disastrous  to  us  as 
the  economy  we  are  practicing  in  our  schools  in  the 
seventh  and  eighth  grades.  For  there  the  boys  fall 
out  by  the  millions.  And  the  fact  that  their  sisters, 
who  can  earn  as  much  at  that  age  as  their  brothers 
earn,  remain  on  an  average  a  few  years  longer,  in- 
dicates that  the  boys  leave  school  because  they  are 
boys,  and  because  the  schools  are  designed  for  the 
girls.  In  some  hazy,  indefinite  way  we  seem  to  be 
realizing  this  as  a  people;  for  in  ten  states  —  Mas- 
sachusetts, Utah,  Indiana,  Virginia,  New  Jersey, 
Illinois,  Maryland,  Ohio,  California,  and  Michigan  — 
we  have  passed  laws  of  more  or  less  value  providing 
for  pensioning  school-teachers.  Given  a  pension, 
and  a  man  can  afford  to  make  teaching  a  profession, 
and  the  man  teacher  will  appear  in  the  seventh  and 
eighth  grades,  and  the  boy  will  be  saved  to  good  citi- 
zenship. If  the  laws  permitting  school  districts  to  set 
aside  pension  funds  spread  over  the  states  as  the 
laws  authorizing  manual  training  schools  have  spread 
since  1900,  by  1920  the  million  pupils  who  reach  the 
high  school  every  year  will  be  greatly  increased  if 
there  is  any  grounds  for  prophecy  in  statistics.     For 


184      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

teachers'  pensions  are  now  being  agitated,  according 
to  letters  from  state  school  superintendents  in  Wash- 
ington, Connecticut,  South  Dakota,  Vermont,  Florida, 
Kentucky,  Wisconsin,  and  New  York  —  where  a  bet- 
ter law  is  demanded.  And  the  feeling  of  the  people 
that  more  liberal  school  expenditures  will  bring  a 
broadened  interest  in  the  state  and  in  more  rigid 
popular  control  of  the  state  affairs  by  the  people  is 
met  by  instinctive  opposition  from  the  politicians. 
For  in  New  York  discussing  the  proposed  teachers' 
pension  law  a  machine  politician  in  the  state  senate 
declared  within  a  year  in  a  public  interview  that  he 
would  introduce  an  amendment  to  the  constitution 
prohibiting  the  state  or  any  of  its  subdivisions  from 
creating  a  pension  service  for  any  public  employes 
except  policemen  and  firemen.  Here  we  have  a 
squarely  drawn  battle  between  democracy  and  the 
aristocracy  of  politics  for  the  retention  of  special 
privileges  or  the  extension  of  democracy. 

But  this  crime  of  the  waste  years  between  twelve 
and  eighteen  when  American  children  leave  school 
is  more  than  a  social  crime  against  the  ballot  box  — 
it  is  economic.  In  the  Annals  of  the  American  Acad- 
emy of  Political  and  Social  Science  for  January, 
1909  (p.  54),  we  find  an  investigator  writing:  "The 
efficiency  of  the  German  workman,  due  to  continua- 


SCHOOLS  THE  MAINSPRING  OF  DEMOCRACY     185 

tion  schools,  has  increased  to  such  an  extent  that 
German  investigators  feel  warranted  in  considering 
American  competition  negligible.  These  same  Ger- 
man investigators  declare  that  the  efficiency  of  the 
American  workman  has  decreased  in  the  last  ten 
years.  Our  own  American  consul  general  to  Berlin, 
considering  the  reports  of  these  German  investigators, 
writes  in  a  formal  report  to  this  government:  " Re- 
duced to  its  simplest  terms  these  investigators  gen- 
erally conclude  that  reliance  on  a  general  more  or  less 
superficial  education,  together  with  natural  adapta- 
bility to  fit  young  men  for  every  walk  of  life  and  the 
lack  of  specialized  study  in  physical  science,  modern 
language,  and  the  industrial  arts,  will,  if  persisted  in, 
neutralize  much  of  the  advantage  which  our  country 
now  enjoys." 

The  answer  of  the  New  York  reactionary  state 
senator  speaking  for  capital  would  probably  be  to 
increase  the  tariff.  But  the  answer  of  democracy 
would  be  to  pension  the  school-teacher,  and  by  get- 
ting higher  grade  teachers,  keep  our  boys  in  school, 
learning  to  use  their  hands  and  their  minds,  that 
they  may  be  good  citizens  and  row  their  weight  in 
the  economic  boat  of  the  world's  industry.  If  there 
is  anything  in  education  as  the  mainspring  of  civic 
virtue,  the  educational  problem  of  democracy  is:  to 


186      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

stop  the  waste  of  the  first  years  of  adolescence  in 
America,  that  the  trained  conscience  of  the  people  in 
maturity  may  find  its  way  into  the  ballot  box.  For 
while  it  is  true  that  learning  and  wisdom  in  individual 
cases  do  not  always  go  together,  still  the  fact  seems 
to  be  fairly  well  established  that  in  the  particular 
blend  of  the  various  strains  of  Aryan  blood  now  in- 
habiting the  American  continent,  education  of  the 
mass  does  direct  the  conscience  of  the  people  toward 
wisdom,  and  does  turn  their  hearts  to  that  common 
sense  of  conduct  known  as  righteousness. 

Take,  for  instance,  Massachusetts.  The  Report 
of  the  National  Commissioner  of  Education  for  1907 
warrants  some  most  interesting  conclusion  about 
education  and  political  progress.  The  Report  indi- 
cates by  Table  7  that  the  daily  attendance  in  Massa- 
chusetts is  larger  than  in  any  other  state,  and  (Table 
8)  that  the  average  number  of  days'  attendance  a 
year  is  larger  than  in  any  other  state,  and  hence 
that  (Table  20)  the  33.2  cents  per  hundred  dollars 
of  true  valuation  of  all  real  and  personal  property 
expended  for  school  purposes  annually  brings  the 
greatest  efficiency  in  educational  result.  The  Report 
indicates  that  Massachusetts  sends  more  of  her 
children  more  days  in  the  year  to  higher  grade  schools 
than  any  other  American  state.     Is  it  therefore  fair 


SCHOOLS  THE  MAINSPRING  OF  DEMOCRACY      187 

to  ask  what  does  the  state  get  out  of  it?  How  does 
the  school  serve  a  progressive,  sane  democracy?  A 
monograph  of  the  American  Academy  of  Social  and 
Political  Science  is  devoted  to  Massachusetts  labor 
legislation,  and  finds  it  on  the  whole  the  wisest  labor 
legislation  in  the  United  States.  In  railroad  legisla- 
tion Massachusetts  has  adopted  as  a  matter  of 
course  provisions  for  state  ownership  of  railroads  as 
a  penalty  for  oppression,  and  while  her  commission 
has  no  rate-making  power,  it  has  information  upon 
which  to  base  rate  suggestions,  and  that  informa- 
tion collected  under  the  law  is  so  complete  and  so 
categorical  in  its  nature  that  a  rate  suggestion  from 
a  Massachusetts  commission,  backed  by  the  power 
of  railroad  ownership,  has  all  the  teeth  necessary 
to  keep  rate  encroachments  at  a  respectful  distance. 
The  commonwealth  has  led  all  the  other  states  in 
providing  a  good  substitute  for  old-age  pensions  for 
its  citizens.  It  regulates  its  public  utilities  with 
rigorous  justice,  and  its  banking  laws  are  models 
for  other  states.  Moreover,  without  primaries  and 
without  legal  aids  to  secure  representative  govern- 
ment, other  than  the  most  radically  nonpartisan 
ballot  law  in  the  United  States,  Massachusetts  has 
maintained  in  the  United  States  Senate  representa- 
tive men  who  by  sheer  intellectual  force  have  domi- 


188      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

nated  that  body  with  the  Massachusetts  idea  and 
have  made  —  whether  for  good  or  ill  —  the  Massa- 
chusetts idea  a  power  in  this  nation  far  beyond  the 
warrant  of  either  the  wealth,  the  population,  or  the 
geographical  area  of  the  commonwealth.  And  finally 
with  all  her  progress  —  and  one  who  examines  the 
laws  and  the  enforcement  of  laws  of  the  several 
states,  and  examines  them  carefully,  must  admit 
that  upon  the  whole  Massachusetts  is  our  most 
progressive  commonwealth  —  with  all  her  progress 
the  federal  courts  only  were  invoked  once  during  the 
two  years  from  1907  to  1909  to  set  aside  the  enforce- 
ment of  any  Massachusetts  law. 

And  that  brings  us  into  the  midst  of  the  whole 
matter  of  this  American  democracy.  Massachusetts 
seems  to  show  us  that  the  basis  of  real  progress  is 
in  the  schoolhouse,  and  the  experience  of  other 
states  with  a  less  efficient  school  system  proves 
beyond  a  doubt  that  the  limits  of  progress  are  found 
in  the  restrictions  put  upon  progress  by  the  courts 
—  for  the  most  part  restrictions  of  the  federal  courts. 

The  status  of  the  courts  will  be  considered  in  an- 
other chapter.  But  it  is  obvious  that  they  mark 
the  bound  beyond  which  democracy  at  any  given 
time  may  not  trespass.  The  bounds  marked  by  the 
courts  are  changing.     They  are  not  the  same  yester- 


SCHOOLS  THE  MAINSPRING  OF  DEMOCRACY      189 

day,  to-day,  and  forever.  And  even  though  the 
constitution  is  not  formally  amended,  its  interpre- 
tation changes  as  the  people  grow  intellectually. 
The  fundamental  law  of  yesterday  is  not  the  fun- 
damental law  of  to-day,  nor  is  the  fundamental  law 
of  the  land  to-day  to  be  the  fundamental  law  to- 
morrow. The  constitution  is  amended  by  inter- 
pretation more  than  by  formal  amendment,  and  the 
amendments  by  interpretation  are  made  by  the 
courts  as  a  result  of  a  most  inexorable  law  of  human 
nature.  Men  take  the  color  of  their  times.  And 
courts  are  men.  So  when  the  times  change,  when 
the  sentiment  of  the  people  becomes  fixed,  courts 
bend  the  constitution  to  the  people. 

Therefore  conditions  in  Massachusetts  prove  that 
the  first  obligation  upon  those  who  would  change 
the  trend  of  our  American  democracy  from  the 
worship  of  property  rights  to  a  consideration  of  the 
proper  relation  of  property  rights  to  the  rights  of 
men  should  not  be  to  change  laws  and  reform  the 
courts;  the  first  obligation  of  reformers  should  be 
to  go  to  the  bottom  and  make  men  and  women  who 
can  think  and  feel  and  act  justly  and  unselfishly. 
The  mainspring  of  democracy  is  in  the  schools. 
The  high  schools,  the  colleges,  and  the  universities 
train  between  one  third  and  two  fifths  of  our  people. 


190      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

But  the  masses  are  from  the  grades  at  or  under  the 
sixth  grade.  Fortunately  this  sixth-grade  mass  of 
our  population  changes  with  the  generations,  and 
the  educated  man  or  woman  is  found  in  almost  every 
family.  There  are  no  family  lines  of  intellectual 
cleavage.  And  the  leadership  of  the  best  trained 
minds  and  hearts  is  rarely  if  ever  lost  to  either  side 
in  any  political  contest,  although  always  intelli- 
gent leadership  is  more  or  less  hampered.  And  often 
the  compromises  which  wisdom  must  make  with 
honest  ignorance  play  into  the  hands  of  those  whom 
both  are  opposing.  The  demagogue  and  his  fol- 
lowers are  after  all  the  chief  agents  of  reaction.  Yet 
the  demagogue  in  the  fool's  school  of  experience  is 
merely  teaching  the  masses  at  a  terrible  cost  what 
they  should  have  learned  during  the  waste  years 
between  the  time  when  they  left  school  in  their  early 
teens  and  the  time  when  they  began  to  live  in  their 
own  right  economically,  socially,  and  politically  in 
their  twenties. 

Moreover,  if  by  any  turn  of  the  treacherous  kalei- 
doscope of  politics  some  issue  should  put  the  interests 
of  a  majority  of  the  uninformed,  unschooled,  un- 
trained, well-meaning  three  fifths  of  our  population 
upon  one  side  of  a  question  of  vital  importance  and 
their  better   trained   fellows   upon   the  other  side, 


SCHOOLS  THE  MAINSPRING  OF  DEMOCRACY      191 

the  price  paid  to  the  master  of  the  fool's  school 
might  be  the  disruption  of  the  Republic.  It  is  in- 
conceivable how  such  a  thing  could  occur.  For 
through  books  and  newspapers  and  the  scores  of 
other  educational  agencies  of  the  land  the  common 
education  of  the  people  is  advancing,  even  after  they 
leave  the  schoolhouse.  Indeed,  in  farming  and 
storekeeping  and  in  many  of  the  outdoor  trades 
which  require  alert  minds  to  pass  quick,  sure  judg- 
ments upon  a  score  of  matters  daily,  there  is  no 
arrested  mental  development.  The  mind  of  men 
and  women  in  these  vocations  grows  through  ado- 
lescence until  maturity,  and  the  newspaper  and  the 
public  library  finish  the  work  of  the  schools  for  mil- 
lions of  people.  But  there  remain  other  millions, 
bound  to  machines,  working  automatically,  for  long 
hours  and  of  necessity  at  small  wages  (because  the 
grade  of  intelligence  required  for  the  work  is  low), 
and  these  millions  taken  from  school  at  the  end  of 
infancy,  should  they  ever  unite  in  politics,  would 
visit  upon  this  nation  a  terrible  vengeance  for  its 
criminal  neglect  of  their  cause.  They  are  skeletons 
in  our  national  closet.  Our  inhumanity  to  them  is 
our  national  sin;  for  which  we  must  suffer  if  we  do 
not  change  our  ways. 

"It  is  practically  impossible  to  find  a  community 


192      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

in  the  United  States,"  says  Nathan  C.  Schaeffer, 
state  superintendent  of  Pennsylvania,  writing  in  the 
discussion  of  taxation  as  related  to  public  educa- 
tion, published  by  the  National  Educational  Asso- 
ciation, "that  does  not  spend  more  money  for  whisky 
and  tobacco  than  for  education."  The  Report  of 
the  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education,  1907, 
indicates  (p.  525)  that  there  are  only  twice  as  many 
school-teachers  as  there  are  bartenders  in  the  coun- 
try. So  while  the  aggregate  amount  spent  for 
schools  is  large,  the  comparative  amount  is  small. 
A  few  states,  notably  Ohio,  make  provision  for  the 
reimbursement  of  parents  for  the  time  of  children  in 
school.  And  eventually  all  the  states  must  come 
to  that  plan.  For  the  pittance  that  the  child  can 
earn  is  so  little  compared  with  the  need  of  the  state 
for  that  child's  judgment  formed  by  a  trained  mind 
in  making  public  sentiment  when  he  is  grown,  that 
it  is  folly  to  haggle  over  the  expense  account. 

If  democracy  is  to  go  forward,  it  must  begin  to 
move  in  the  schools  of  the  country.  Now  as  a  people 
we  can  move  quickly  when  we  desire  to  move  quickly. 
Within  ten  years  there  has  been  a  complete  change 
in  the  American  mind  about  the  treatment  of  defect- 
ive children.  We  have  stopped  putting  children 
in  jail;  the  juvenile  court  has  come  into  the  judicial 


SCHOOLS  THE  MAINSPRING  OF  DEMOCRACY     193 

system  of  practically  every  American  state.  We  do 
not  count  its  cost,  because  we  see  its  justice.  The 
enlightened  selfishness  of  the  American  people  makes 
them  regard  investments  in  playgrounds,  children's 
camps,  recreation  places  on  docks  and  piers,  boys' 
farms  and  similar  institutions  for  children,  as  profit- 
able investments.  And  the  enlightened  selfishness 
of  the  people  —  their  public  altruism  —  must  be 
awakened  to  the  fact  that  the  waste  years  of  early 
adolescence  of  our  American  children  constitute  the 
greatest  menace  to  the  perpetuity  of  our  institu- 
tions. The  waste  of  those  years  is  undemocratic.  It 
is  due  to  public  selfishness.  If  the  child  leaves 
school  for  social  reasons,  that  is  because  he  does  not 
feel  that  the  school  interests  him,  it  is  demonstra- 
ble that  better  schools  —  higher  priced  teachers, 
teaching  the  rough,  practical  things  which  early 
adolescence  instinctively  longs  for  —  will  hold  him. 
But  that  requires  men  teachers,  and  to  hold  men  of 
the  right  sort  teaching  must  be  made  a  career;  and 
for  that  pensions  for  teachers  seem  to  be  necessary 
unless  salaries  are  greatly  increased.  (Parenthetic- 
ally it  might  be  said  that  there  is  no  reason  why 
citizens  as  adults  should  not  pay  the  taxes  required 
to  pension  the  teacher  who  worked  too  cheaply  to 
teach  them  as  children.)     If,  on  the  other  hand,  the 


194  THE   OLD   ORDER  CHANGETH 

child  is  compelled  to  leave  school  because  his  parents 
cannot  afford  to  keep  him  in  school,  —  for  economic 
reasons,  in  short,  —  then  the  public,  having  need  of 
the  child's  adult  judgment  in  the  state,  should  re- 
imburse the  parents  for  their  loss  of  the  child's  miser- 
able wages,  and  so  keep  the  child  in  school. 

Laws  will  not  make  us  a  free  people;  presidents 
and  governors  will  not  make  us  free;  courts  will  not 
make  us  free.  "Ye  shall  know  the  truth,  and  the 
truth  shall  make  you  free."  And  if  the  "  general 
genius  of  a  government"  —  which  Hamilton  says  is 
"all  that  can  be  substantially  relied  upon  for  per- 
manent effects"  —  does  not  give  the  people  the 
truth,  the  people  must  remain  in  bondage.  The  upper 
grades  of  our  common  schools  and  our  high  schools 
and  our  colleges  and  universities  are  turning  out 
millions  of  men  and  women  who  are  giving  their  lives 
to  society  unselfishly  as  teachers  and  preachers  and 
farmers  and  doctors  and  lawyers  and  mechanics  and 
merchants,  whose  chief  thought  is  not  for  money. 
These  men  and  women  form  the  bulk  of  the  well- 
housed,  well-clad,  well-fed,  prosperous  body  of  the 
democracy,  neither  rich  nor  poor.  But  occasionally 
there  rises  in  a  town,  a  state,  or  a  nation  some  igno- 
rant, selfish,  crafty,  brutal  human  vulture,  fat  with 
prey  of  capital  taken  within  the  law,  and  greedy  for 


SCHOOLS  THE  MAINSPRING  OF  DEMOCRACY      195 

more.  He  debauches  legislatures;  he  blinds  the 
courts,  and  controls  executives.  The  public  senti- 
ment of  educated  people  does  not  check  him,  as  it 
sometimes  checks  the  greedy  man  from  the  college. 
He  is  crass,  vicious,  and  unrestrained.  Yet  he  is 
our  own  child.  He  and  the  criminal  of  the  slums 
are  brothers.  Society  has  made  both  slums  —  the 
ignorant  slum  of  the  rich  man  and  the  ignorant 
slum  of  the  poor  man.  For  it  has  denied  them  both 
the  truth  that  would  make  them  free.  And  we 
must  all  suffer  for  our  sin  to  them.  For  all  our  new 
machinery  of  democracy,  our  secret  ballot,  our  party 
system,  slowly  purifying  itself,  our  primary  nomi- 
nations, our  direct  legislation,  will  avail  us  little 
against  these  two  men  of  the  slums.  Together  one 
in  industry,  and  the  other  in  crime,  sometimes  allied, 
and  never  far  apart,  these  men,  like  jungle  beasts, 
live  upon  the  flesh  and  blood  of  the  children.  Into 
their  lairs,  either  as  plunder  of  wages  or  prey  of  crime, 
go  the  waste  years  of  adolescence  in  this  country. 
Yet  they  —  these  social  outlaws  —  are  but  the  in- 
carnation of  our  national  greed.  They  speak  for 
democracy,  too;  they  are  a  part  of  democracy; 
they  are  products  of  democracy.  This  is  their  gov- 
ernment as  well  as  the  government  of  the  middle 
classes.    They  and  all   the  evils  in  their  train  — 


196      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

crime,  poverty,  injustice,  suffering  —  are  signs  of 
our  bondage  to  ignorance  and  greed.  It  is  a  bond- 
age self-imposed.  For  at  our  own  hands,  unchecked 
by  courts  or  by  federal  laws  or  by  state  statutes, 
lies  the  school  system  of  the  people. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  COURTS  THE  CHECKS  OF  DEMOCRACY 

In  these  closing  years  of  the  first  decade  of  the 
twentieth  century,  there  are  in  the  United  States 
ninety  millions  of  us  —  mostly  Aryans.  Some  of  us 
are  Latin  Aryans  from  the  south  of  Europe;  a  few 
of  us  are  Slavic  Aryans  from  the  north  of  Europe;  a 
distinguishable  strain  of  our  blood  is  Norseman 
Aryan,  from  the  west  of  Europe,  and  many  of  us  are 
Celtic  Aryans,  cropping  out  of  any  of  half  a  dozen 
other  Aryan  breeds;  but  the  dominant  blood  is  the 
Teutonic  blood  of  the  Angles  and  the  Jute  and  the 
Saxons,  —  the  blood  that  absorbed  the  Latins,  and 
the  Celts,  and  the  Normans,  who  came  to  the  British 
Isle  as  conquerors  in  battle,  and  lost  in  the  struggle 
of  the  blood.  For  here  in  the  United  States  we  have 
two  things  which  have  made  the  Teuton  strong  in 
this  earth:  the  home  with  the  mother  never  out  of 
caste,  and  the  rule  of  the  folk  by  the  "most  ancient 
ways"  —  the  supremacy  of  the  majority.  Other 
branches  of  the  Aryan  race  have  come  into  this 
continent,   have  established    half-caste  homes  with 

197 


198  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

native  wives,  and  the  outlawed  woman  has  dragged 
these  races  down  to  her  level.  Other  Aryans  have 
come  to  the  land  under  the  rule  of  a  king  or  a  priest 
and  tyranny  has  inbred  and  destroyed  them.  But 
the  Teutonic  Aryan  brought  his  home,  kept  his 
Teutonic  women  full  caste;  the  blood  has  never  de- 
generated, and  tyranny  has  never  undermined  our 
institutions.  So  here  we  are,  ninety  millions  of  us, 
if  not  all  of  one  blood,  at  least  all  of  one  mind.  The 
free  woman  in  the  home  has  made  the  free  school; 
the  free  school  has  preserved  the  free  man;  and  the 
free  man,  still  abiding  by  the  most  ancient  ways  — 
the  rule  of  the  majority  —  is  working  out  free  in- 
stitutions. 

Now  this  freedom  of  ours  is  of  its  own  kind.  There 
is  said  to  be  in  the  harbor  of  Havana  a  most  re- 
markable statue  of  liberty.  A  woman  stands,  with 
ecstasy  in  her  face,  with  a  shout  of  joy  all  but  on 
her  lips,  with  almost  delirious  eyes  turned  upward 
toward  her  wide-stretched  arms,  whereon  the  broken 
manacles  are  dangling  useless.  That  is  the  Latin 
idea  of  liberty.  But  our  freedom  is  another  thing. 
It  is  not  so  new-born.  If  it  might  be  symbolized  by 
a  woman,  the  figure  could  be  represented  as  a  mother 
who  never  felt  a  shackle,  toiling  wearily  j^et  happily  for 
her  family.     For  this  freedom  of  ours  is  little  more 


THE  COURTS  THE  CHECKS  OF  DEMOCRACY   199 

than  the  right  of  a  human  being  to  be  useful;  and  to  be 
useful  one  must  sacrifice,  must  give,  must  deny,  and 
be  happy  only  in  the  joy  of  others.  Our  freedom, 
that  comes  from  a  free  mother  in  a  free  home,  par- 
takes of  her  self-abnegation.  And  so  we  alone  of  the 
Aryans  that  have  no  bondwoman's  blood  in  our 
veins,  we  who  have  no  half-caste  mothers,  have  been 
able  to  rear  the  children  of  democracy,  men  to  whom 
freedom  means  sacrifice.  And  as  the  Aryans  of 
Greece  tried  democracy  with  their  bondwomen  and 
failed,  and  the  Aryan  of  Rome  tried  a  Republic  with 
slaves  and  failed,  so  they  who  came  to  America  from 
Latin  countries  failed  in  this  new  world  because 
their  new  world  homes  were  half-caste  and  not  free, 
and  the  liberty  they  sought  was  license  and  not 
sacrifice.  And  by  this  token  we  must  know  that  so 
long  as  our  democracy  is  altruistic,  so  long  as  it  is 
based  on  self-sacrifice  and  self-restraint,  it  will  en- 
dure. Now  we  have  in  our  government  two  great 
institutions  enforcing  both  self-sacrifice  and  self- 
restraint:  our  schools,  for  which  we  spend  nearly 
half  a  billion  dollars  in  taxes  every  year  without 
getting  any  immediate  material  results  for  our  self- 
sacrifice,  and  our  courts,  which  hold  us  back  from 
our  political  impulses.  And  though  we  claim  to 
base  our  government  upon  our  federal  Constitution, 


200  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

neither  our  schools  nor  our  courts,  the  mainsprings 
and  the  checks  of  democracy,  derive  their  real  powers 
definitely  expressed  or  get  the  charter  for  those 
powers  from  the  Constitution.  The  schools  are 
purely  local  in  their  origin  and  management;  and 
the  veto  power  of  the  courts  over  our  legislation  is 
purely  an  extra-constitutional  power  interpreted  into 
the  Constitution  by  Chief  Justice  John  Marshall. 
Literally  we  are  living  under  a  government,  the  be- 
ginning and  the  end  of  which  —  the  schools  and  the 
courts  —  are  the  creation  of  folklaws!  The  funda- 
mental law  of  the  nation  hedges  the  legislative 
branch  of  the  government  about  with  all  sorts  of 
theoretical  checks;  it  sets  metes  and  bounds  for 
the  executive;  and  it  marks  a  Pickwickian  dead  line 
across  which  the  courts  may  not  step.  But  as  the 
years  have  gone  by  all  these  checks  on  the  various 
branches  of  the  government  have  been  broken. 

The  Constitution  declares  that  the  lawmakers 
shall  make  laws  and  that  the  executives  shall  ap- 
point men  to  enforce  the  laws.  But  in  spite  of  the 
adoration  of  the  Constitution  by  certain  mechanical 
lawyers,  the  will  of  the  people  has  changed  the 
Constitution  without  bothering  to  go  through  the 
empty  form  of  writing  in  the  amendments.  Now 
lawmakers    appoint   many    executive    subordinates 


THE  COURTS  THE  CHECKS  OF  DEMOCRACY      201 

through  a  system  of  political  "recommendations." 
These  subordinates  appointed  through  political  rec- 
ommendation by  legislators  assist  in  the  enforcement 
of  laws,  and  these  subordinates  often  are  loyal  to 
the  lawmakers  who  secured  their  appointments 
rather  than  to  the  executives  who  merely  sign  the 
notices  of  appointment.  Also  in  the  face  of  the 
Constitution  in  this  country  executives  make  laws. 
A  rather  elaborate  executive  legislative  function  has 
developed  among  us.  First,  by  withholding  "patron- 
age," that  is,  the  right  of  political  recommendations 
from  lawmakers,  executives  may  (and  certainly  do) 
coerce  lawmakers  into  voting  for  favorite  executive 
bills  in  the  Congress.  Secondly,  by  voicing  public 
sentiment,  and  arousing  the  people,  the  executive 
coerces  lawmakers  to  vote  for  his  measures.  The 
Roosevelt  policies  that  were  enacted  into  laws  were 
enacted  in  the  face  of  a  sheer  majority  in  Congress 
against  them.  And  finally,  a  third  check  of  the 
Constitution  is  broken  by  the  federal  courts.  For 
instance,  certain  district  attorneys,  marshals,  clerks, 
and  judges,  forced  upon  President  Roosevelt  by  a 
reactionary  Senate,  sometimes  gayly  set  to  work  to 
annul  many  of  the  laws  which  he  had  secured.  So 
instead  of  having  three  distinct  branches  of  govern- 
ment, the  legislative,  executive,  and  judicial,  we  have 


202  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

lawmakers  controlling  the  execution  of  laws,  execu- 
tives influencing  the  making  of  laws,  and  courts 
vetoing  laws,  and  enforcing  the  laws  through  bench 
warrants,  injunctions,  and  court  orders  of  various 
kinds.  And  as  if  that  were  not  enough,  by  way  of 
diversion,  we  have  lawmakers  naming  the  courts 
and  executives  rallying  the  people  to  protest  against 
court  decisions.  If  there  is  any  distinct  branch  of 
the  American  government  that  is  not  easily  amena- 
ble to  political  influence  from  the  other  two  branches, 
it  is  difficult  to  say  just  which  branch  it  is.  Thus 
has  our  flexible  Constitution  been  bent  to  the  needs 
of  popular  government  and  the  exigencies  of  politics. 
Yet  with  all  this  flux  of  government  as  a  nation  we 
live  in  admirable  self-restraint.  Probably  Americans 
are  the  most  conservative  people  in  the  civilized 
world. 

But  while  the  Constitution  has  been  losing  its 
rigidity,  the  federal  courts  have  assumed  an  extra- 
constitutional  right  to  veto  state  and  national  legis- 
lation, and  to  set  aside  the  decrees  of  state  courts; 
and  now  the  federal  courts  are  beginning  to  restrain 
state  executives  in  the  enforcement  of  state  laws. 
The  political  sovereignty  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  probably  is  more  largely  in  the  hands  of  the 
American  federal  courts  just  now  than  in  any  other 


THE  COURTS  THE  CHECKS  OF  DEMOCRACY     203 

single  branch  of  the  government.  Self-restraint  is, 
therefore,  the  dominant  note  in  our  government. 
For  by  permitting  this  extra-constitutional  power  of 
the  courts  over  us  we  are  obviously  self-restrained. 
We  have  liberty  without  license.  That  this  extra- 
constitutionally  self-imposed  restraint  of  the  people 
through  their  courts  upon  their  own  political  im- 
pulses was  abused,  that  it  made  the  courts  the  organs 
of  a  political  and  financial  aristocracy  in  the  days 
when  prosperity  was  a  high  potency  god,  and  that 
there  is  still  some  danger  of  a  return  of  the  aristoc- 
racy to  power,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  The  forces 
of  altruism  are  manifest  in  the  rising  democratic 
institutions  in  the  cities  and  the  states.  The  oppos- 
ing forces  of  greed  are  manifest  in  the  judicial  wor- 
ship of  property  rights  as  against  human  rights  in 
many  courts.  This  worship  of  sheer  property  rights 
as  such  is  still  found  lingering  in  the  legal  doctrine 
of  the  " assumed  risk"  in  labor  damage  cases,  and 
in  the  judicial  theory  that  a  legislative  act  is  not 
"due  process  of  law."  But  on  the  other  hand  the 
opposing  forces  of  altruism  and  greed  in  our  govern- 
ment are  by  no  means  at  rest.  Probably  they  will 
never  be  at  rest  so  long  as  we  are  a  growing  nation. 
For  where  there  is  rest  there  is  death.  The  conflict, 
however  fierce,  is  a  sign  of  our  national  youth.    This 


204  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

conflict  between  our  democracy  and  property  rights 
is  carried  on  in  the  courts  —  and  not  by  barricades 
in  the  streets.  And  it  is  carried  on  in  the  courts 
through  an  extra-legal  power  of  veto  upon  the  legis- 
latures and  by  injunctions  upon  administrators  of  the 
law.  Surely  this  surrender  of  the  people  to  the 
courts  represents  some  large  subconscious  conviction 
of  the  great  worth  of  patient  self-restraint  even  in 
the  face  of  temporary  wrong.  We  are  living  peace- 
fully under  an  extra-constitutional  government  of 
lawyers  rather  than  of  laws;  for  lawyers  in  the  courts 
say  the  final  word  about  the  meaning  of  our  laws: 
we  have  no  earthly  tribunal  in  our  government  in 
which  during  times  of  peace  a  man  not  a  lawyer  has, 
under  the  Constitution  as  now  construed,  more  than 
an  advisory  function.  And  slowly  as  the  fear  of 
God  —  which  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom  —  gets 
into  the  lawyers,  the  nation  is  coming  through  self- 
restraint  to  the  attainment  of  whatever  righteous 
aspirations  may  be  in  the  hearts  of  the  people. 

Therefore,  since  we  are  living  under  a  government 
of  the  courts,  in  which  the  sovereign  will  of  the  people 
is  finally  expressed  by  the  courts  and  in  spite  of  laws 
on  the  statutes  and  in  spite  of  administrative  theories 
of  duty,  it  may  be  well  to  examine  the  courts  of  this 
nation.     Who   are  the   judges    that  make   and   all 


THE   COURTS  THE   CHECKS   OF  DEMOCRACY      205 

but  execute  our  laws?  In  the  appendix,  page  255, 
will  be  found  a  list  of  all  the  judges  appointed  during 
the  eight  years  from  1901  to  1909  to  our  federal 
bench,  and  the  formal  indorsements  they  had  in 
securing  appointment.  It  will  be  seen  by  this  list 
that  these  judges  for  the  most  part  are  indorsed  by 
business  men  and  politicians,  or  by  other  judges 
who  owed  their  places  to  the  indorsement  of  business 
men  and  politicians.  The  federal  bench  of  to-day 
had  its  birth  in  politics.  In  so  far  as  they  came 
from  politics,  the  federal  judges  knew  that  politics 
is  largely  financed  by  business.  The  high-caste 
Brahmans  of  politics  who  form  the  "organization"  in 
every  state,  and  who  extract  from  business  the  oil 
that  lubricates  politics,  all  were  "for"  these  judges 
high  and  low.  There  is  scarcely  a  man  in  the  list 
who  set  out  to  his  goal  fighting  the  political  machine, 
defying  the  "organization,"  and  scorning  the  alliance 
that  made  our  business  and  our  politics  reprehen- 
sible during  the  nineties  and  the  early  years  of  this 
century.  So  one  may  see  why  the  federal  bench  has 
its  face  set  against  all  reform  and  is  inclined  to  sniff 
at  reformers. 

This  list  proves  one  thing   certainly.     That  the 
courts  —  having  final  jurisdiction  and  authority  over 


206  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

things  temporal  in  America  —  come  from  the  people. 
Change  the  character  of  our  democracy,  —  that  is, 
change  the  method  by  which  we  express  our  political 
faith,  —  and  we  will  change  the  character  of  United 
States  senators;  thus  will  we  change  our  courts. 
The  men  who  named  these  courts  were  interested  in 
business  prosperity.  That  was  our  national  god 
during  the  closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
Prosperity  won  a  great  national  election.  Prosperity 
was  the  dominant  idea  of  the  people.  A  majority 
of  the  senators  elected  from  1890  to  1908  were  chosen 
by  railroad  attorneys  through  the  state  bosses  who 
influenced  the  state  legislatures.  Hence  property  is 
the  dominant  thought  of  our  courts.  The  assumed 
risk  for  accidents  is  on  the  men  who  work  for  rail- 
roads in  a  hazardous  undertaking,  not  upon  the 
capital  that  employs  them  in  a  hazardous  under- 
taking. The  assumed  risk  of  failure  in  farming  or 
in  storekeeping  along  any  line  of  railroad  is  upon 
the  men  who  undertake  the  farming  and  storekeep- 
ing without  any  guarantee  that  railroad  rates  shall 
move  their  crops  and  the  merchandise;  the  risk  is 
not  on  the  men  who  build  the  railroads  —  even  in 
foolish  or  malicious  competition  or  to  reap  extrava- 
gant promoters'  profits.  That  was  the  idea  of  the 
people  when  business  and  politics  were  allies.    The 


THE  COURTS  THE  CHECKS  OF  DEMOCRACY     207 

courts  named  by  the  senators  who  were  named  by 
the  big  property  interests  expressed  the  will  of  the 
people,  and  because  prosperity  was  the  god  of  the 
people,  the  defense  of  invested  capital  as  merely  in- 
vested capital,  unrelated  to  human  considerations, 
dominated  the  ruling  of  the  courts  that  came  from 
the  people  in  that  day.  Money  in  politics  protected 
money  in  business.  But  when  the  people  change 
their  United  States  senators,  the  courts  will  change, 
and  the  courts  will  amend  the  Constitution  to  suit 
the  people.  For  a  sentiment  strong  enough  to  domi- 
nate legislatures  and  congresses,  and  demand  a 
constitutional  amendment,  does  not  need  the  amend- 
ment. Even  if  the  machinery  of  our  government  did 
not  put  the  courts  indirectly  into  the  hands  of  the 
people,  they  would  still  take  the  coloring  of  the  pre- 
vailing sentiment  about  them,  after  it  ceased  to  be 
a  clamor  and  became  settled  conviction.  And  our 
courts  —  with  all  their  extra-constitutional  power, 
with  all  their  recent  bias  toward  the  rights  of  property 
"in  its  public  use"  as  against  human  rights  —  are 
still  our  own  courts,  our  own  political  creatures,  and 
subject  entirely  to  our  control.  The  apparent 
sovereignty  of  the  courts  is  really  sovereignty  of  the 
people.  Indeed,  as  matters  stand  to-day  with  the 
national  Senate  and  the  national  House  organized  as 


208  THE   OLD   ORDER   CHANGETH 

they  are,  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  seems  to 
be  the  most  progressive  institution  under  our  federal 
government. 

There  is  an  anomalous  extra-legal  organization 
in  this  country  known  as  the  Association  of  Attor- 
neys-general. Something  like  half  of  the  American 
states  are  represented  at  the  annual  meetings  of  the 
Association,  either  by  their  attorneys-general  or  by 
their  assistants.  These  men  are  elected  for  short 
terms  —  usually  for  two  years  —  and  they  come  to 
these  meetings  directly  from  the  people.  Probably 
these  attorneys-general  more  clearly  than  any  other 
body  of  men  in  the  United  States  interpret  the  as- 
pirations of  the  American  people  as  these  aspirations 
are  being  formed  into  statutes  directed  against  the 
arrogant  dominion  of  the  thing  called  property  "in 
its  public  use  ' '  in  this  government.  It  is  not  strange, 
therefore,  that  we  find  these  attorneys-general  chaf- 
ing under  the  veto  of  the  federal  courts  upon 
state  legislation,  passed  to  neutralize  the  political 
and  social  power  of  property  or  capital  or  whatever 
form  wealth  takes  in  the  social  order  as  opposed  to 
the  rights  of  men.  These  attorneys-general  are  the 
counsel  for  the  centrifugal  force  of  society  as  against 
the  centripetal;  the  advocates  of  the  common  altru- 
ism of  all  men,  against  the  common  greed  of  all  men. 


THE  COURTS  THE   CHECKS  OF  DEMOCRACY     209 

They  are  special  pleaders  for  democracy;  but  like 
all  counsel,  their  pleadings  must  still  remain  plead- 
ings and  not  judgments.  Yet  the  fact  as  announced 
at  a  recent  meeting  of  the  organization  that  one  hun- 
dred and  eight  injunctions  were  pending  in  federal 
courts  against  the  enforcement  of  state  laws,  in  1908, 
indicates  that  the  need  of  counsel  for  the  democracy 
is  evident.  Probably  the  number  is  understated. 
A  recent  inquiry  made  to  the  attorneys-general  of 
twenty-one  states  taken  at  random,  as  to  the  num- 
ber of  laws  suspended  by  suits  in  the  federal  courts 
during  the  two  years  from  1907  to  1909,  brings  the 
following  illuminating  answers:  South  Carolina,  5, 
lost  all;  Florida,  5;  South  Dakota,  5,  1  lost,  1  won; 
Maine,  1  pending;  Minnesota,  1  lost;  Utah,  2, 
1  lost,  1  won;  Indiana,  7;  Georgia,  10;  Massachu- 
setts, 1;  Nebraska,  1  won,  2  pending;  Alabama,  13, 
won  about  half;  Colorada,  2  pending;  Vermont  1; 
Montana,  1;  Oregon,  5,  2  pending,  won  3;  Michigan, 
5,  won  all;  Washington,  3,  won  2;  Ohio,  6,  won  5; 
California,  Virginia,  and  Oklahoma  each  1. 

Now,  each  of  these  laws  attacked  represents  from 
one  to  ten  suits,  and  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  these 
suits  in  a  majority  of  cases  attacked  railroad  laws, 
in  many  cases  tax  laws ;  in  some  cases  food  laws  — 
usually  stock  food  or  pure  paint  laws,  and  occasionally 


210  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

liquor  laws.  Reading  fully  the  answers  above  quoted, 
one  is  constrained  to  believe  that  the  right  of  the 
state  to  tax  property,  and  to  destroy  it  by  prohibition 
under  the  police  power  of  the  state  if  necessary,  is 
conceded  by  the  courts,  but  that  the  right  to  make 
railroad  rates  for  the  common  good  under  the  police 
power  of  the  state  is  contested. 

The  Fourteenth  Amendment  to  the  federal  Consti- 
tution generally  regards  legislative  acts  of  taxation 
and  prohibition  as  "due  process  of  law"  —  accord- 
ing to  our  federal  courts;  but  the  Fourteenth 
Amendment  considers  railroad  rate-making  legisla- 
tion, whether  by  the  state  or  by  the  federal  govern- 
ment, as  "due  process  of  law"  only  until  a  federal 
court  can  think  the  matter  over!  A  rather  attract- 
ive, if  not  graceful,  curve  might  be  made  by  a  person 
of  a  mathematical  turn,  indicating  the  variableness 
of  our  United  States  Supreme  Court,  upon  this  sub- 
ject of  "due  process  of  law"  during  the  thirty  years 
past.  Thirty-three  years  ago  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court  decided  the  case  of  Munn  vs.  Illi- 
nois, held  — 

"When  one  devotes  his  property  to  a  use  in  which 
the  public  has  an  interest,  he,  in  effect,  grants  to 
the  public  an  interest  in  that  use  and  must  submit  to 
be  controlled  by  the  public,  for  the  common  good, 
to  the  extent  of  the  interest  he  has  created." 


THE  COURTS  THE  CHECKS  OF  DEMOCRACY  211 

Elsewhere  in  the  same  opinion,  the  court  says:  — 

"If  it  be  admitted  that  the  legislature  has  any 
control  over  the  compensation,  the  extent  of  the 
compensation  becomes  a  mere  matter  of  legislative 
discretion.  The  controlling  fact  is  the  power  to 
regulate  at  all." 

Clearly  that  decision  puts  the  state  regulation  of 
rates  along  with  the  state's  power  to  confiscate,  as 
it  confiscates  in  the  case  of  prohibition,  race-track 
gambling,  impure  food,  and  the  like.  The  regulation 
of  rates  by  the  state  is  made  a  police  power,  perhaps 
on  the  theory  that  the  right  of  the  community  to 
rates  that  would  haul  the  crop  to  market  was  as  im- 
portant as  the  rights  of  the  bondholders  of  foolishly 
competing  railroads  to  interest  on  their  ill-advised 
investments.  The  sacred  rights  of  "property  de- 
voted to  public  use  "  —  invested  in  railroad  bonds  — 
often  meanly  invested  in  railroads  built  for  business 
spite  or  commercial  greed  —  was  held  in  those  days 
to  be  no  more  sacred  than  the  rights  of  property  in 
farms. 

Again,  in  1876,  the  Supreme  Court  declared  in  the 
case  of  C.  B.  &  R.  R.  vs.  Iowa: — 

"When  the  legislature  steps  in  and  prescribes  a 
maximum  charge,  it  operates  upon  this  corporation 
the  same  as  it  does  upon  individuals  engaged  in  a 
similar  business." 


212  THE   OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

Clearly  the  court  recognized  legislative  rate-making 
as  "due  process  of  law"  performed  under  the  police 
power  of  the  state.  The  court  repeated  this  opinion. 
For  in  the  case  of  Peik  vs.  C.  &  N.  W.  R.  R.,  the 
Supreme  Court  held  — 

"When  a  property  has  been  clothed  with  a  public 
interest  the  legislature  may  fix  a  limit  to  that  which 
in  law  shall  be  reasonable  for  its  use.  The  limit  binds 
the  court  as  well  as  the  people." 

Much  is  said  about  the  stability  of  government  un- 
der courts,  yet  the  statutes  have  not  changed,  the 
Constitution  has  not  changed,  but  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court  has  changed,  and  now  that  which 
once  was  law  is  not  the  law.  For  the  court  grad- 
ually edged  away  from  that  doctrine  of  thirty  years 
ago,  and  made  the  law  as  it  is  to-day  independently 
of  legislation  or  of  any  amendment  to  the  Constitu- 
tion. And  in  1885  we  find  the  Court  crawfishing  a 
little  from  its  decisions  of  the  seventies.  In  the 
case  of  Stone  vs.  Farmers'  Loan  and  Trust  Company, 
the  Court  holds:  — 

"From  what  has  been  said  it  is  not  to  be  inferred 
that  this  power  of  limitation  or  regulation  is  without 
limit.  The  power  to  regulate  is  not  the  power  to 
destroy,  and  limitation  is  not  the  equivalent  of  con- 
fiscation." 


THE  COURTS  THE  CHECKS  OF  DEMOCRACY     213 

There  we  find  the  police  power  of  the  state  slipping 
gently  out  of  rate  controversies.  A  few  years  later, 
in  the  case  of  C.  M.  &  S.  P.  R.  R.  vs.  Minnesota,  the 
United  States  Supreme  Court  found  that  the  ques- 
tion of  the  " reasonableness  of  the  rate"  established 
by  the  state  was  "  eminently  a  question  for  judicial 
investigation  requiring  due  process  of  law  for  its  deter- 
mination." There  the  police  power  of  the  state 
kissed  good-by  to  railroad  legislation. 

After  that  decision  the  police  power  of  the  state 
began  consorting  with  brewers  and  race-track  gam- 
blers and  makers  of  bad  food,  and  other  persons  of 
inferior  social  caste.  "The  controlling  fact  is," 
not  as  the  court  said  in  1876,  "  the  power  to  regulate 
at  all."  There  has  been  a  change  in  our  law,  with  no 
change  in  anything  except  in  the  personnel  of  the 
court.  "The  controlling  fact"  is  the  "reasonable- 
ness of  the  rate."  But  the  court  felt  it  was  renigging, 
and  in  another  opinion  saved  its  face  in  1892  —  Budd 
vs.  New  York  —  by  saying  in  its  cuff  aside  and 
obiter  dicta:  — 


"  What  we  said  in  the  opinion  in  United  States  134 
(above  quoted)  as  to  the  question  of  the  reasonable- 
ness of  the  rates  of  charge  being  one  for  judicial  inves- 
tigation, had  no  reference  to  a  case  where  the  rates 
are  prescribed  directly  by  the  legislature." 


214  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

The  statute  failed;  it  denied  the  right  of  court 
review!  A  little  later,  in  the  case  of  C.  &  G.  T.  R.  R. 
vs.  Wellman,  the  case  turned  on  the  power  of  the  legis- 
lature to  regulate  rates  at  all.  In  upholding  the 
Michigan  statute,  the  United  States  Supreme  Court 
held  that: — 

"The  legislature  has  the  power  to  fix  rates  and  the 
extent  of  judicial  interference  is  protection  against 
unreasonable  rates." 

In  the  case  of  Reagan  vs.  Farmers'  Loan  and 
Trust  Company,  154  U.S.  362,  the  Supreme  Court 
enjoined  the  enforcement  of  a  Texas  law  until  the 
reasonableness  of  the  rates  fixed  was  determined  by 
evidence.  That  is  a  long  jump  from  the  Munn  case, 
wherein  rates  were  fixed  under  the  police  power 
of  the  state,  and  from  the  Peik  case,  wherein  the  same 
court  held,  nearly  twenty  years  before,  that  if  the 
rate  has  been  improperly  fixed,  "the  legislature  and 
not  the  courts  must  be  appealed  to  for  justice." 
And  mind  you,  all  this  edging  along  from  "police 
power"  to  "due  process  of  law"  was  made,  not  by 
unanimous  decisions  of  the  Court,  but  by  four  to  five, 
three  to  six,  and  by  two  to  seven  dissents,  except  in  a 
few  cases  —  one  being  that  case  just  cited.  The  law 
changed,  not  because  it  was  clearly  right  to  depart 
from  the  former  ruling,  but  because  of  the  changing 


THE  COURTS  THE  CHECKS  OF  DEMOCRACY     215 

temperament  of  the  people  as  manifested  in  their 
judges.  The  people  in  those  years  were  clamoring 
madly  for  more  railroads.  The  people  were  eager 
to  concede  anything  to  capital.  The  railroads  were 
getting  control  of  state  politics,  naming  United  States 
senators,  who  in  turn  named  federal  judges;  and  the 
Constitution  was  amended  by  the  people,  without 
bothering  to  go  through  the  form  of  passing  the 
amendments  in  the  legally  prescribed  manner.  No 
special  credit  is  due  to  the  writer  hereof  for  origi- 
nality in  these  researches  above  noted.  They  are 
printed  in  a  book  entitled  "  Railway  Problems,"  com- 
piled by  William  Z.  Ripley,  of  Harvard,  surely  a  most 
respectable  source. 

About  the  time  the  federal  court  began  rate-making 
we  find  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  wrestling 
with  the  question :  What  is  a  reasonable  rate  — 
what  profit  should  a  rate  yield  ?  Rate-making  had 
passed  entirely  from  the  legislatures  to  the  federal 
courts.  In  1898  the  Supreme  Court  had  gone  far 
enough  to  decide  that  "the  company  is  entitled  to 
ask"  "a  fair  return  upon  that  which  it  employs  for 
the  public  convenience,"  which,  under  the  evidence 
upon  which  the  court  decided,  was  something  like 
1.99  per  cent,  4.06  per  cent,  6.84  per  cent,  and  10.63 
per  cent  —  according  to  the  value  of  the  railroads 


216  THE   OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

involved.  But  in  the  case  of  Cutting  vs.  Goddard 
in  1901  —  a  stockyards  case  —  it  seems  that  times 
were  better  than  in  1898,  and  the  court  decided  in 
effect  that  10  per  cent  was  not  too  much,  and  that 
rates  which  reduce  the  earnings  to  5.3  per  cent  are  un- 
constitutional. These  decisions  also  are  cited  in  the 
above-named  book. 

But  the  curve  has  turned.  In  January,  1909,  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  held  in  the  New 
York  Gas  case  that  6  per  cent  is  about  fair.  In 
other  words  all  under  6  per  cent  must  be  subjected  to 
regulation,  only  upon  "due  process  of  law."  All 
over  that  sum  may  be  regulated  by  the  police  power 
of  the  state  for  the  common  good.  That  is  the  law 
to-day.  If  the  people  change,  the  laws  may  be  some- 
thing entirely  different  to-morrow. 

But  let  us  examine  a  little  further  and  see  again 
how  our  courts  follow  the  people.  In  the  eighties 
and  late  seventies  an  emotional  prohibition  wave 
was  moving  over  the  country.  In  that  day  the  move- 
ment probably  represented  more  clamor  than  senti- 
ment. The  conservatism  of  the  people  of  most 
of  the  states  was  against  it.  The  feeling  was  too 
hysterical,  differing  greatly  from  the  prohibition 
movement  to-day,  which  is  based  upon  business  con- 
viction, rather  than  emotion.    So  in  the  nineties  we 


THE  COURTS  THE  CHECKS  OF  DEMOCRACY     217 

find  the  courts  guarding  real  sentiment  —  whether 
right  or  wrong  is  immaterial  to  the  case  —  against 
clamor.  But  to  protect  conservative  sentiment  the 
Court  had  to  reverse  a  long  line  of  its  own  deci- 
sions, and  to  all  practical  intent  it  had  to  amend  the 
Constitution.  But  the  Supreme  Court  evidently 
regards  the  Constitution  as  an  unimportant  matter 
between  friends.  For  almost  an  even  century  prior 
to  1890,  the  law  of  the  land  has  been  that  the  control 
of  intoxicating  liquors,  including  the  matter  of  inter- 
state shipments,  was  within  the  police  power  of  the 
states.  The  question  has  been  passed  on  in  the 
New  Hampshire  License  case  (5  How.  279)  and  the 
power  of  the  states  over  such  shipments  upheld. 
This  doctrine  was  squarely  overruled  in  Leisy  vs. 
Hardin,  135  U.S.  100  (1890),  and  it  is  now  contended 
that  Congress  is  powerless  to  release  to  the  states 
the  right  to  regulate  or  to  interfere  in  any  way  with 
interstate  shipments  of  liquor. 

That  we  may  not  be  considered  hasty  in  the  con- 
clusion that  the  Constitution  is  a  flexible  document, 
let  us  consider  another  phase  of  its  mobility.  The 
alliance  between  business  and  politics  which  Seth 
Low,  former  mayor  of  Greater  New  York  and  former 
president  of  Columbia  University,  has  chosen  to  call 
"a  system  of  feudalism"  " fostered  by  corporate  con- 


218      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

trol  of  our  government,"  has  clearly  considered  the 
demand  for  equitable  rates  on  railroads  as  mere 
demagogic  clamor.  Some  day  the  courts  will  see 
things  differently.  But  seeing  things  as  they  saw 
them,  the  Constitution  had  to  be  amended  to  check 
the  clamor. 

So  we  find  the  Constitution  amended  again  in  this 
wise :  After  the  adoption  of  the  Eleventh  Amendment 
to  the  Constitution,  no  state  could  be  sued  except 
at  the  suit  of  another  state  brought  in  the  Supreme 
Court.  It  was  held  uniformly  by  the  courts  that  a 
suit  against  the  chief  officers  of  the  state  was  in  effect 
a  suit  against  the  state  itself,  and,  therefore,  could 
not  be  maintained.  This  was  the  doctrine  of  Fitts 
vs.  McGhee,  172  U.S.  516,  decided  in  1899.  There 
the  Supreme  Court  said:  — 

"A  suit  to  restrain  officers  of  a  state  from  taking 
any  steps  by  means  of  judicial  proceedings,  in  execu- 
tion of  a  state  statute  to  which  they  do  not  hold  any 
special  relation,  is  really  a  suit  against  the  state  within 
the  prohibition  of  the  Eleventh  Amendment  of  the 
federal  Constitution." 

In  1908,  in  the  famous  Young  habeas  corpus  case, 
the  court  announced  exactly  the  contrary  doctrine 
and  held  that  a  suit  against  state  officers  who  were 
endeavoring  to  enforce  a  statute  alleged  to  be  uncon- 
stitutional was  not  a  suit  against  a  state. 


THE  COURTS  THE  CHECKS  OF  DEMOCRACY     219 

One  more  instance  may  be  cited  of  the  pliability 
of  our  fundamental  law,  and  we  shall  finish.  It 
was  formerly  held  that  courts  of  equity  could  not 
enjoin  the  enforcement  of  criminal  statutes;  but  of 
late  years,  the  United  States  courts,  while  assuming 
to  stand  by  the  same  rule,  claim  that  injunctions 
may  be  issued  to  prevent  a  multiplicity  of  suits,  and 
for  the  purpose  of  enforcing  the  restraints  of  the 
power  of  states  enumerated  in  the  Fourteenth  Amend- 
ment, the  federal  courts  have  rarely  refused  to  use 
the  power  of  injunction  to  test  the  validity  of  state 
statutes. 

It  is  more  difficult  to  trace  this  change,  step  by 
step,  and  from  case  to  case,  than  the  other  changes 
referred  to.  Nevertheless,  the  evolution  in  practice 
is  easily  discernible.  It  has  been  accomplished  rather 
by  magnifying  the  importance  of  an  exception  to  the 
rule,  than  by  a  change  in  the  rule  itself. 

In  the  early  cases  in  which  the  court  declined  to 
enjoin  the  commencement  of  criminal  prosecutions 
under  a  state  statute  they  quoted  with  striking  fre- 
quency the  rule  as  stated  in  Story's  ''Equity  Juris- 
prudence," as  follows:  — 

"There  are,  however,  cases  in  which  courts  of 
equity  will  not  exercise  any  jurisdiction  by  way  of 
injunction  to  stay  proceedings  at  law.     In  the  first 


220  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

place,  they  will  not  interfere  to  stay  proceedings  in  any 
criminal  matters,  or  in  any  cases  not  strictly  of  a  civil 
nature;  as,  for  instance,  they  will  not  grant  an  in- 
junction to  stay  proceedings  on  a  mandamus  or  an 
indictment  or  an  information  or  a  writ  of  prohibition. 
But  this  restriction  applies  only  to  cases  where  the 
parties  seeking  redress  by  such  proceedings  are  not 
the  plaintiffs  in  equity;  for,  if  they  are,  the  court 
possesses  power  to  restrain  them  personally  from  pro- 
ceeding at  the  same  time,  upon  the  same  matter  or 
right,  for  redress  in  the  form  of  a  civil  suit  and  of  a 
criminal  prosecution.  In  such  cases  the  injunction 
is  merely  incidental  to  the  ordinary  power  of  the 
court  to  impose  terms  upon  parties  who  seek  its  aid 
in  furtherance  of  their  rights."     (Vol.  2,  Sec.  893). 

In  the  later  cases,  however,  including  the  famous 
case  of  Ex  Parte  Young,  the  court  announced  a 
different  rule,  as  follows :  — 

"The  remedy  at  law  of  a  railroad  company  to 
test  the  validity  of  a  statute  fixing  rates  for  railroad 
transportation  by  disobeying  the  statute  once  and 
submitting  to  a  criminal  prosecution  is  not  so  ade- 
quate as  to  deprive  equity  of  jurisdiction,  where 
several  years  might  elapse  before  a  final  determina- 
tion of  the  question,  pending  which  observance  of  the 
statute,  if  finally  found  to  be  invalid,  would  result 
in  taking  its  property  without  due  process  of  law, 
with  no  possibility  of  its  recovery." 

Now  in  all  these  cases  there  is  no  doubt  but  that 
the  court  has  decided  conscientiously.  Moreover,  in 
every  case  the  court,  whether  consciously  or  not,  was 


THE  COURTS  THE   CHECKS  OF  DEMOCRACY      221 

following  what,  according  to  its  lights,  seemed  to  be 
the  real  justice  in  the  matter;  and  because  courts 
are  human,  it  is  more  than  likely  that  the  court  took 
its  color  of  the  right  and  wrong  of  the  matter  from 
its  environment,  from  the  newspapers  and  maga- 
zines and  books  it  read,  from  the  men  it  met,  from 
the  public  sentiment  it  felt.  That,  of  course,  was 
unconscious.  And  in  so  far  as  American  convictions 
are  deep  rooted,  the  courts  —  even  our  Supreme 
Court — cannot  escape  from  these  convictions,  and  so 
ultimately  the  will  of  the  people  prevails. 

Now  all  these  opinions  of  the  Supreme  Court  are 
set  down  here,  not  in  disrespect  for  the  courts  and 
laws,  but  to  show  how  laws,  written  and  unwritten, 
court-made  and  enacted,  follow  the  dominant 
thought  of  the  people.  The  Granger  cases,  decided 
in  the  seventies,  reflected  the  opinions  of  men  just 
home  from  war,  to  whom  property  as  such  was 
not  so  sacred  as  the  rights  of  men.  They  had 
seen  Lincoln,  without  constitutional  warrant,  take 
$2,000,000,000  worth  of  legal  property  in  slaves  from 
the  slaveholders  because  it  was  morally  right.  So 
property  as  opposed  to  men  didn't  impress  that 
generation.  Then,  as  the  nation  became  richer,  as 
the  struggle  for  wealth  began  to  engross  the  people, 
the  Supreme  Court  unconsciously  colored  its  opin- 


222      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

ions,  and  the  "protection  of  the  vested  rights  of 
property,"  became,  as  announced  formally  by  the 
United  States  Court  in  the  Wellman  case  in  the 
nineties,  "the  supreme  duty  of  the  courts." 

And  so  when  Mark  Hanna  was  the  head  of  the 
extra-constitutional  government,  the  Supreme  Court 
followed  the  people  and  decided  that  5  per  cent 
interest  on  capital  was  unconstitutional  and  that  10 
was  not  too  much.  The  courts  are  checks  upon 
public  clamor.  But  when  they  face  public  sentiment, 
they  find  just  as  good  law  on  the  side  of  a  definitely 
settled  public  opinion  as  there  is  on  the  other,  and 
the  four  to  five  majority  begins  to  waver  toward  public 
sentiment,  and  so  the  people  rule.  And  while  the 
courts  are  hesitating,  uncertain  whether  it  is  clamor 
or  sentiment  that  is  roaring  through  the  land,  the 
people  profit  greatly  by  the  unpopular  decisions  of 
the  courts.  For  these  opinions  teach  patience  — 
self-restraint  —  the  one  great  need  of  democracy. 
For  it  develops  faith  by  trying  it  sorely.  And  the 
slowness  of  the  courts  to  respond  to  public  sentiment 
is  one  of  the  real  —  though  at  times  amply  disguised 
—  blessings  of  this  government. 

There  is  much  ponderous  folly  about  the  hair- 
splitting technicalities  of  the  courts,  much  irritating 
caste  feeling  of  the  profession  expressed  in  their  stupid 


THE   COURTS  THE  CHECKS  OF  DEMOCRACY      223 

legal  verbiage,  and  much  laziness  —  both  of  lawyers 
and  of  judges  —  in  the  " law's  delay";  but  after  all 
the  courts  are  the  anchors  of  democracy.  And  for 
that  matter  so  is  our  most  flexible  Constitution; 
though  many  solemn  persons  think  the  courts  and  the 
Constitution  are  the  foundation  of  democracy.  Yet 
the  Constitution  will  be  picked  up  by  the  courts  and 
dragged  along  after  public  sentiment  as  fast  as  it 
changes.  The  Constitution  is  as  responsive  to  public 
sentiment  after  it  has  definitely  settled  as  any  of  our 
institutions,  and  the  courts  are  as  mobile  as  the 
people.  Persons  who  are  resting  their  vested  wrongs 
upon  the  Constitution  may  as  well  prepare  for  a 
change.  For  the  Constitution,  which  meant  one 
thing  in  the  Granger  days  of  the  seventies  and  meant 
another  thing  in  the  prosperity  days  of  Hanna,  seems 
to  be  getting  ready  to  mean  something  entirely  dif- 
ferent within  a  few  years. 

The  trend  of  recent  United  States  Supreme  Court 
decisions  is  away  from  the  precedents  of  ten  years 
ago.  The  Virginia  Corporations  Commission  deci- 
sion sets  the  procedure  in  certain  railroad  cases 
through  the  state  courts.  The  Los  Angeles  tele- 
phone decision  refuses  to  interfere  with  a  rate  even 
though  the  councilmen  making  a  rate  are  subject  to 
the  recall,  and  further  decides  against  the  company 


224      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

(among  other  things)  because  they  refuse  to  bring 
their  books  before  the  council  to  aid  the  council  in 
making  rates  —  a  most  important  decision.  In  the 
Knoxville  waterworks  decision,  the  Supreme  Court 
holds  that  until  the  water  company  has  actually 
obeyed  the  rate-making  ordinance  it  has  no  right  to 
claim  confiscation  under  the  ordinance,  and  that 
"  bonds  and  preferred  and  common  stock  issued  under 
such  conditions  (i.e.  in  return  for  services  not  ren- 
dered) afford  neither  measure  nor  guide  to  the  value 
of  the  property."  The  Oregon  woman  labor  case 
sustains  the  right  of  the  state  to  limit  the  hours  of 
labor  of  women. 

Even  the  time-honored  " assumed  risk"  of  labor 
seems  to  be  growing  less.  For  the  Supreme  Court 
and  practically  all  the  federal  circuit  courts  have 
sustained  the  safety  appliance  law  which  takes  away 
from  railroad  men  the  blessed  right  to  lose  legs  and 
arms  and  lives  —  or  quit  work.  Moreover,  in  re- 
versing Judge  Gray  of  Delaware,  in  the  commod- 
ities case,  the  Supreme  Court  delivered  a  glancing 
blow  at  the  Fourteenth  Amendment  as  a  protection 
for  property  rights;  and  the  blow  may  produce  an 
abrasion  that  may  develop  into  a  destructive 
tumor.  But  the  most  revolutionary  language  used 
by  the  Supreme  Court  in  many  years  was  used  by 


THE  COURTS  THE  CHECKS  OF  DEMOCRACY      225 

Justice  Moody  in  reversing  Circuit  Judge  Lurton, 
now  on  the  Supreme  bench.  Judge  Lurton  had 
suggested  that  Congress  would  not  pass  a  law  so 
harsh  as  to  compel  railroads  to  equip  their  cars  with 
safety  appliances  at  a  great  (and  perhaps  the  judge 
thought  at  a  confiscatory)  expense.  Justice  Moody's 
opinion,  reversing1  Judge  Lurton,  indicated  rather 
broadly,  and  almost  merrily,  that  laws  had  to  be  harsh 
to  some  one,  and  that  the  employes  were  less  able  to 
bear  the  hardships  of  loss  of  life  and  limb  than  the 
railroad  company's  stockholders  were  to  bear  losses 
of  dividends.  The  opinion  of  Justice  Moody  will 
bear  reprinting,  for  it  is  a  definite  step  in  a  new 
direction.     He  says: 

"Congress,  not  satisfied  with  the  common  law  duty 
(between  master  and  servant)  and  its  resulting 
liability,  has  prescribed  and  defined  the  duty  by 
statute.  We  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  ascertain 
and  declare  the  meaning  of  a  few  simple  words  in 
which  the  duty  is  described.  It  is  enacted  that  'no 
cars,  either  loaded  or  unloaded,  shall  be  used  in  inter- 
state traffic  which  do  not  comply  with  the  standard. 
There  is  no  escape  from  the  meaning  of  these  words. 
Explanation  cannot  clarify  them,  and  should  not  be 
employed  to  confuse  them  or  lessen  their  signifi- 
cance. It  is  urged  that  this  is  a  harsh  construction. 
To  this  we  reply  that,  if  it  be  the  true  construction, 
its  harshness  is  no  concern  of  the  courts.  It  is  said 
that  the  liability  under  the  statute,  as  thus  construed, 
imposes  so  great  a  hardship  upon  the  railroads  that 


226      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

it  ought  not  to  be  supposed  that  Congress  intended 
it.  .  .  .  But  this  argument  is  a  dangerous  one,  and 
should  never  be  heeded  where  the  hardship  would  be 
occasional  and  exceptional.  It  would  be  better,  as 
was  once  said  by  Lord  Eldon,  to  look  hardship  in  the 
face  rather  than  break  down  the  rules  of  law.  .  .  . 
"  Where  an  injury  happens  through  the  absence 
of  a  safe  drawbar  there  must  be  hardship.  Such  an 
injury  must  be  an  irreparable  misfortune  to  some  one. 
If  it  must  be  borne  entirely  by  him  who  suffers  it, 
that  is  a  hardship  to  him.  If  its  burden  is  trans- 
ferred, so  far  as  it  is  capable  of  transfer,  to  the  em- 
ployer, it  is  a  hardship  to  him.  It  is  quite  conceivable 
that  Congress,  contemplating  the  inevitable  hard- 
ship of  such  injuries,  and  hoping  to  diminish  the 
economic  loss  to  the  community  resulting  from  them, 
should  deem  it  wise  to  impose  their  burdens  upon 
those  who  could  measurably  control  their  causes, 
instead  of  upon  those  who  are,  in  the  main,  helpless 
in  that  regard.  Such  a  policy  would  be  intelligible, 
and,  to  say  the  least,  not  so  unreasonable  as  to  require 
us  to  doubt  that  it  was  intended  and  to  seek  some 
unnatural  interpretation  of  common  words.'' 

These  and  other  recent  decisions  of  the  Supreme 
Court  indicate  that  the  court  feels  the  moral  impulse 
that  is  stirring  in  the  nation.  And  whatever  the 
people  aspire  to  earnestly,  unselfishly,  persistently, 
they  may  have  as  the  law  of  the  land. 

There  is  therefore  little  reason  to  fear  the  growing 
power  of  the  federal  courts.  They  change  with 
public  sentiment.    Fifty  years  ago,  lawyers  used  to 


THE  COURTS  THE  CHECKS  OF  DEMOCRACY     227 

think  that  there  was  no  common  law  in  the  United 
States  federal  practice;  that  federal  courts  acquired 
jurisdiction  only  by  statute,  either  the  acts  of  Con- 
gress or  the  Constitution.  But  when  we  freed  the 
negro,  we  changed  all  that.  The  Fourteenth  Amend- 
ment was  aimed  exclusively  at  the  rights  of  the  freed- 
man,  but  it  incidentally  prohibited  states  from  taking 
property  "without  due  process  of  law."  Some  smart 
lawyer  discovered  this  phrase,  applied  it  to  vested  rights 
of  stockholders  of  corporations.  A  most  interesting 
book,  "The  Power  to  Regulate  Corporations  and 
Commerce,"1  by  Frank  Hendrick,  First  Ricardo  Prize 
Fellow  of  Harvard,  has  been  written  to  prove  that 
not  only  is  there  a  common  law  jurisdiction  in  federal 
courts,  but  that  under  that  jurisdiction  the  federal 
courts,  as  the  ultimate  authority  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment, must  have  "final  determination  of  rights  arising 
from  contract  or  the  use  or  possession  of  property." 
This  is  advanced  ground.  But  there  is  no  escaping 
from  the  logic  of  this  position.  There  must  be  a  last 
word  in  the  inevitable  struggle  between  the  democracy 
and  the  rights  of  invested  capital.  The  more  surely 
the  matter  is  settled,  the  more  definitely  responsibility 
is  fixed,  the  more  equitably  will  the  adjustment  of 
matters  at  issue  be  made.     Here,  then,  in  the  Supreme 

1  Putnams,  1909. 


228       THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

Court  of  the  United  States  is  our  government  an- 
chored. Here  will  our  great  problems  be  settled. 
Yet  how  easily  this  court  is  reached.  Assuming  a 
radical  President  as  the  climax  of  the  growth  of  popu- 
lar radicalism  for  six  years,  in  1916,  within  two  years 
he  could  have  a  radical  Supreme  Court.  Only  one 
or  two  radical  decisions  would  be  needed.  The 
lower  courts  would  fall  in  line.  And  unless  the  peo- 
ple change  their  minds  in  six  years,  a  radical  Supreme 
Court  is  coming.  For  after  all  it  is  the  people's 
country.     They  rule  —  even  over  the  courts. 

And  that  brings  us  back  to  the  real  foundation  of 
this  government  —  the  one  institution  which  shall 
determine  the  destiny  of  the  people.  That  institu- 
tion is  the  one  institution  over  which  the  people  have 
the  most  absolute  control  —  the  public  schools.  As 
the  matter  now  stands,  we  are  a  people  from  the  sixth 
grade.  And  the  problem  of  democracy  is  not  what 
the  secret  ballot  will  do  for  us,  not  what  direct  primary 
nominations  will  do  for  us,  not  what  direct  legislation 
will  do  for  us,  not  what  our  commissions  and  charters 
and  responsible  administrators  will  do  for  us  —  not 
even  what  the  courts  will  do  for  us.  For  these  are 
but  machines;  means,  not  ends.  The  vital  question 
is  what  will  our  schools  do  for  us.  The  problems 
before  this  nation  require  expert  treatment.     The 


THE  COURTS  THE  CHECKS  OF  DEMOCRACY      229 

supreme  court  of  prices,  which  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie 
says  is  bound  to  come,  "disguise  it  as  we  may," 
which  our  anti-trust  laws  make  necessary,  and  which 
President  Taft  advocated  in  relation  to  railroads  in 
his  message  of  January  7,  1910,  this  supreme  court 
of  prices  will  require  great  national  self-sacrifice  —  a 
surrender  of  many  individual  rights.  This  must 
come  from  a  citizenship  of  a  higher  type  than  the 
world  has  ever  seen  before.  For  that  commission,  or 
whatever  body,  —  whether  legal  or  extra-legal,  — 
which  shall  finally  pass  upon  the  equities  of  prices  in 
our  national  workshop  will  be  chosen  by  the  people, 

—  perhaps  indirectly  as  the  Supreme  Court  is  chosen 

—  but  still  by  the  people.  In  the  end  the  people  will 
rule. 

But  with  all  our  machinery  for  self-government, 
what  a  botch  we  are  bound  to  make  of  our  experiment 
in  democracy  if  the  sense  of  justice  of  the  majorities 
that  rule  comes  from  the  sixth  grade  of  our  common 
schools.  For  as  sure  as  there  is  a  just  God,  the  more 
we  make  laws  unleashing  the  power  of  the  people 
without  widening  the  vision  of  the  people,  those  laws, 
those  very  laws  that  release  the  people  from  politi- 
cal bondage,  will  be  "  vessels  of  wrath,  fitted  unto 
destruction." 


CHAPTER  IX 

A   LOOK   AHEAD 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  what  a  tremendous  splash 
in  the  tide  of  humanity  was  made  by  the  invention  of 
fire-making,  or  of  the  lever,  or  of  the  wheel.  How  the 
current  of  affairs  was  changed  by  each  of  these  de- 
vices. How  many  ten  thousands  of  years  man  con- 
sumed socializing  fire,  for  instance,  slowly  and  with 
great  labor  and  many  wars  taking  away  the  special 
privileges  of  priestcraft,  or  social  distinction  that 
went  with  fire-making  to  the  fire-makers.  When'fire- 
making  lost  its  mystery  and  became  common  to  all 
the  people,  what  a  change  had  come  over  mankind 
—  what  advancement  had  been  reached.  Man  had 
ceased  to  migrate  with  the  birds,  and  had  separated 
himself  from  the  herd  into  families,  had  learned  to 
cook,  and  had  lost  his  hairy  coat.  With  the  invention 
of  the  wheel  came  the  overthrow  of  the  rule  of  the 
strong.  And  as  the  mystery  of  the  wheels  became 
common  to  the  people,  —  through  the  centuries,  — 
as  the  wheel  became  socialized,  so  that  every  man 

230 


A  LOOK  AHEAD  231 

might  make  and  have  and  use  a  wheel  without  paying 
tribute  or  obeisance,  the  leash  of  the  strong  upon  the 
weak  slackened  just  a  little.  The  history  of  man  has 
been  a  story  of  the  socializing  of  human  inventions, 
taking  them  from  the  few  who  received  homage  and 
taxes  for  them,  and  distributing  the  inventions  and 
the  blessings  they  brought  among  all  the  people. 

The  invention  of  writing  gave  us  commerce  and 
kings;  its  socialization  gave  us  the  invention  of 
printing.  Printing  took  away  the  special  privileges 
of  the  priests,  but  it  gave  the  power  of  the 
priests  to  the  traders;  gunpowder  armed  the  com- 
mon man,  and  the  socialization  of  gunpowder  de- 
stroyed feudalism,  and  made  our  modern  democracy 
possible.  Great  inventions  create  classes  of  men 
with  more  or  less  power  over  their  fellows.  Then 
slowly  the  people  take  over  the  inventions,  make 
them  common  to  the  race,  and  the  special  privileges 
attached  to  a  particular  invention  pass;  and  with  the 
passing  of  these  privileges  the  economic,  social,  and 
spiritual  life  of  the  people  changes. 

To-day  the  world  is  trying  to  socialize  the  invention 
of  steam.  The  nineteenth  century  was  one  of  "  many 
inventions."  But  all  of  them,  that  are  of  first  impor- 
tance in  the  world,  are  subsidiary  to  the  discovery  of 
the  power  of  steam,  or  are  interrelated  to  it.     We 


232  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

have  shown  that  the  economic  manifestation  of  the 
invention  of  steam  is  the  invention  of  the  cor- 
poration. Not  that  the  corporation  is  new  in 
the  world,  neither  is  steam;  the  vapors  of  boiling 
water  and  the  legal  partnerships  of  men  have  been 
known  for  thousands  of  years.  But  with  the  har- 
nessing of  steam  came  the  consolidation  of  capital. 
The  vast  physical  power  of  the  steam  engine  pro- 
duced the  vast  economic  power  of  capital.  The  steam 
engine  is  too  big  for  the  common  man  to  own.  It 
requires  two  or  twenty  or  two  thousand,  or  two 
million,  or  more,  to  own  it,  and  to  furnish  material 
for  the  engine  to  work  upon.  And,  moreover,  it  put 
out  the  individual  fires  in  a  million  little  forges;  it 
took  from  the  homes  and  shops  of  the  people  millions 
of  little  wheels,  and  gathered  to  itself  all  the  levers 
in  the  world.  It  was  as  though,  by  some  strange 
reversion  to  old  days,  a  great  pre- Adamite  giant  had 
come  stalking  into  the  earth  gathering  unto  himself 
all  the  fires  and  their  privileges  that  men  had  wrested 
from  him  in  the  morning  of  time,  all  the  wheels  and 
their  privileges  and  all  the  levers  and  their  special 
powers  that  had  passed  among  men  in  the  childhood 
of  the  race.  The  world  stood  afraid  before  the  steam 
engine.  And  to  those  who  controlled  it  we  gave 
privileges  and  rights  and  immunities  that  we  gave  of 


A  LOOK  AHEAD  233 

old  to  the  priestly  fire-makers,  the  kingly  wheel 
owners,  the  royal  purveyors  of  the  secrets  of  the 
levers.  Steam  harnessed  by  capital  made  a  new 
mystery  that  demanded  our  worship.  And  how  we 
have  bowed  to  it!  Kings,  potentates,  priests,  " prin- 
cipalities and  powers,"  —  all  have  paid  deference  to 
the  captain  of  industry.  He  who  can  control  capital 
has  stood  before  kings.  Capital  has  broken  caste, 
the  last  vestige  of  feudalism;  and  where  caste  exists 
to-day,  it  is  a  hollow  shell  that  will  crumble  before 
the  new  century  is  much  older.  Our  problem  in  this 
century  must  be  the  socialization  of  steam;  and  in- 
cidental to  that  will  be  the  control  of  capital. 

For  to-day,  under  the  present  order  of  things,  cap- 
ital rules  the  world.  Churches  are  built  and  creeds 
formulated  to  please  capital.  Wars  are  begun  and 
ended  and  nations  established  and  laws  enacted  for 
the  profit  of  capital.  Politics  is  the  struggle  of  capital 
to  hold  its  legal  advantage.  The  priests  of  capital  in 
the  skyscraping  temples  in  the  great  cities  of  the  world 
hold  dominion  over  the  minds  and  bodies  of  the  civi- 
lized people  on  this  planet  as  the  fire-making  priests 
of  primeval  days  ruled  their  little  worlds  from  altars 
and  caves.  For  our  high  priests  to-day,  holding  do- 
minion over  the  fires  and  wheels  and  levers  of  the 
world,  have  assumed  to  make  the  morals  of  the  world 


234      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

to  fit  their  convenience,  and  for  their  services  have 
exacted  such  tribute  as  seemed  equitable,  to  wit, 
all  the  traffic  will  bear.  But  the  reaction  is  as  inev- 
itable to-day  as  it  was  of  old.  The  difference  be- 
tween the  reactions  will  be  only  a  difference  of  time. 
We  live  in  a  rapid  age.  The  nineteenth  century 
saw  the  greatest  revolution  in  the  world  —  that  from 
feudalism  to  industrialism,  from  the  control  of  kings 
to  the  control  of  capital.  The  twentieth  century 
will  see  even  a  greater  revolution  —  that  from  the  con- 
trol of  capital  to  the  control  of  men.  Capitalism  is 
republican;  the  next  evolutionary  step  will  be  toward 
democracy.  For  capital,  controlling  the  fires  and 
wheels  and  levers  of  the  world,  after  all  has  been  only 
the  world's  servant.  Steam  has  been  turning  power 
presses,  spreading  knowledge  among  men,  making 
electricity  to  spread  intelligence  abroad  in  the  earth, 
to  transform  distance  into  a  physical  fiction,  to  draw 
men  together  in  acquaintanceship  that  in  the  nature 
of  things  must  end  in  brotherhood.  Capital,  with  all 
its  diabolical  self-interest,  has  been  engaged  in  school- 
ing men  well,  in  housing  them  warmly,  in  clothing 
them  decently,  in  providing  them  wholesome  food, 
and  making  them  physically  and  mentally  stronger 
men  than  ever  the  world  has  seen  before  this  genera- 
tion.   It  must  have  been  thus  that  the  ancient  inven- 


A  LOOK  AHEAD  235 

tions  were  socialized.  As  they  made  man  stronger,  he 
captured  them.  It  is  a  world-old  history  of  human 
progress.  Moreover,  the  same  human  nature  is  work- 
ing on  this  our  latest  problem  that  worked  upon  prob- 
lems that  faced  man  as  a  child.  We  face  a  new  fact 
in  the  world;  fear  it;  let  it  establish  our  moral  rela- 
tion to  it,  as  a  thing  apart  from  our  common  daily 
run  of  life;  the  new  fact  becomes  a  fetish,  capturing 
us  with  its  new  creed;  we  struggle  and  battle  and 
fret  ourselves  to  little  avail;  and  lo  !  we  see  some  fine 
morning  that  the  new  fact  is  to  be  handled  according 
to  no  new  creed,  but  according  to  the  old  law  of  kind- 
ness and  that  common  sense  of  simple  justice  between 
man  and  man  known  as  righteousness.  Thus  men 
have  captured  and  made  part  of  society  fires  and 
wheels  and  levers  and  printing  presses  and  gunpowder 
and  Christ's  creed;  and  thus  we  shall  capture  steam, 
control  capital,  and  establish  democracy,  not  by  in- 
tricate laws  and  elaborate  government  machinery, 
but  by  the  fundamental  kindness  of  men  to  men,  the 
basic  unselfishness  of  man  widened  and  applied  to 
men,  in  their  new  relations.  Only  as  man's  range  of 
unselfishness  has  extended  from  the  family  to  human- 
ity has  he  grown  useful  and  happy  in  his  usefulness 
upon  this  globe.  So  in  the  conquest  of  steam  will  he 
win  by  no  new  set  of  morals,  but  by  awakening  to 


236  THE   OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

the  widening  life  that  steam  has  brought,  and  apply- 
ing to  that  greater  life  his  divinely  given  kindness. 

Now  in  the  contest  for  the  control  of  capital  by 
society  through  governments,  those  who  would  con- 
trol capital  are  divided  into  differing,  if  not  oppos- 
ing, schisms  or  factions  or  schools:  those  who  would 
distribute  the  profits  of  capital  according  to  the  needs 
of  men ;  and  those  who  would  distribute  profits  accord- 
ing to  the  achievements  of  men.  "From  each  accord- 
ing to  his  ability;  to  each  according  to  his  needs,"  say 
the  socialists.  "From  each  and  to  each  according  to 
his  achievement,"  say  the  individualists.  "We  claim 
for  each  man  equal  rights  with  all  other  men,"  say 
the  socialists.  "We  claim  for  each  man  equal  rights 
to  display  his  inherent  inequality  to  all  other  men," 
reply  the  individualists.  "We  demand  that  every 
man's  needs  be  satisfied,"  say  the  socialists.  "We 
concede  that  certain  fundamental  needs,  such  as  food 
and  warmth  and  shelter,  be  guaranteed  by  society  to 
every  man  willing  to  work  —  not  so  much  perhaps 
to  help  the  needy  man  as  to  prevent  the  brutalization 
of  those  in  plenty,"  say  the  individualists,  and  add, 
"but  after  that,  all  that  society  should  do  is  to 
guarantee  that  every  man's  actual  inequalities  of 
achievement  shall  be  reflected  with  reasonable  ac- 
curacy in  his  social  rewards." 


A  LOOK  AHEAD  237 

And  that  brings  us  to  the  problem  of  the  century: 
Shall  we  control  capital  as  socialists  or  as  individual- 
ists, distributing  the  profits  of  capital  according  to 
our  needs  or  according  to  our  achievements,  fostering 
the  equality  of  men  or  developing  their  essential 
inequalities?  That  we  are  to  control  capital  and  make 
some  much  more  equitable  distribution  of  the  profits 
of  capital  than  now  is  made  seems  indisputable. 
The  vast  restlessness  of  the  common  people  of  the 
world,  and  particularly  of  America,  proves  that.  It 
will  be  idle  for  capital  to  resist  control;  it  will  be 
dangerous  to  civilization  for  capital  to  arrogate  to 
itself  the  divine  right  of  kings  and  plead  a  different 
and  a  higher  morality  to  govern  its  activities.  The 
more  capital  resists  control,  the  more  of  it  will  be 
destroyed  by  the  struggle  to  control.  The  more  self- 
ishness capital  puts  into  the  struggle  of  the  people 
to  control  it,  the  more  selfishness  capital  will  engender. 
"As  ye  sow,  so  also  shall  ye  reap."  But  on  the  other 
hand,  the  more  fundamental  faith  in  the  justice  and 
fairness  of  men  organized  in  government  those  who 
control  capital  exhibit  in  the  arbitrament  of  the  prob- 
lem of  the  century,  the  more  capital  will  there  be  in 
the  world  when  the  question  is  settled. 

But  the  folly  of  capital  seems  to  be  like  the  folly 
of    kings.     Capital    is    making    the    same    struggle 


238  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

against  control  and  distribution  according  to  needs  of 
men,  as  witnessed  by  the  contest  with  the  socialists 
of  Europe,  that  capital  is  making  against  the  control 
and  distribution  of  capital  according  to  the  honest 
achievements  of  men,  as  witnessed  in  the  contest  in 
America.  It  is,  however,  the  American  contest  that 
interests  us  chiefly.  Here  the  socialists  have  perhaps 
the  smallest  following  they  find  in  any  civilized  coun- 
try. Here  is  an  earnest  attempt  to  control  capital 
and  distribute  its  profits  solely  upon  the  achieve- 
ments of  men,  allowing,  of  course,  for  that  narrow 
margin  of  need  which  must  be  provided  for  if  those 
in  comfort  shall  not  grow  selfish  and  brutalized  by 
the  constant  appearance  of  cruel  want. 

The  American  struggle  to  socialize  steam  by  con- 
trolling capital,  this  vast  new  economic  growth  from 
the  physical  fact  of  steam,  may  be  epitomized  by  the 
word  "  democracy."  Democracy,  the  child  of  steam, 
is  seeking  to  control  capital,  its  economic  brother. 
The  struggle  proves  that  a  real  force  has  come  into 
the  world  —  a  social  element  with  its  two  forms  of 
motion  —  inward  and  outward,  centripetal  and  cen- 
trifugal, egoistic  and  altrustic,  capital  and  democracy. 
Now,  it  may  be  fairly  asked  what  is  democracy  trying 
to  do  with  capital.  It  may  be  easily  seen  that  as  the 
control  of  the  government,  whether  of  the  city  or  the 


A  LOOK  AHEAD  239 

state  or  the  nation,  passes  more  directly  into  the 
hands  of  the  people,  profits  shrink.  In  the  earlier 
chapters  of  this  book,  we  saw  that  as  money  gets  out 
of  politics  profits  decrease  in  public  service  corpora- 
tions. Here  are  three  concrete  typical  instances: 
The  referendum  in  the  cities  makes  it  impossible 
to  grant  franchises  carrying  large  profits  for  pro- 
moters, and  this  forces  municipal  ownership,  which, 
being  translated,  means  bonds  issued  at  a  low  rate 
of  interest.  In  the  states  men  nominated  by  direct 
primaries  are  demanding  that  railroads  issue  stocks 
and  bonds  only  upon  the  valuation  of  the  property; 
and  that  means  only  legitimate  profits  in  flotation. 
In  the  nation,  as  the  people  are  awakening  to  their 
power,  presidents,  legislatures,  and  courts  are  curtail- 
ing the  powers  and  profits  of  capital  invested  in 
combinations  restraining  trade.  Everywhere  that 
democracy  touches  capital  interest  shrinks,  profits 
decrease,  dishonest  deals  and  speculations  cease. 
What  is  democracy  trying  to  do? 

Now,  as  a  working  hypothesis,  let  us  suppose  that 
our  American  democracy  is  trying  to  distribute  the 
profits  of  capital  according  to  the  achievement,  and 
not  —  except  secondarily  —  according  to  the  needs 
of  men.  It  becomes  necessary  to  define  achieve- 
ment.    It  may  mean  one  thing  yesterday,  a  certain 


240      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

thing  to-day,  and  something  entirely  different  to- 
morrow. Indeed,  the  world's  progress  may  be  read 
in  the  changing  definition  it  makes  for  achievement. 
One  may  say  achievement  is  social  service.  That 
sounds  definite  and  certain,  as  the  lawyers  put  it. 
But  every  age  sees  a  change  in  what  it  regards  as 
social  service.  In  imperial  Rome  the  soldier  was  the 
chief  social  servant.  He  had  the  "  power  and  the 
glory,"  because  the  state  was  so  organized  that  the 
soldier  deserved  much  credit  for  the  stability  of 
society.  In  the  Middle  Ages  the  priest  was  the  chief 
social  servant;  his  achievement  was  best  rewarded, 
because  he  held  the  state  together.  But  with  the  in- 
vention of  printing  and  gunpowder  the  soldier  and  the 
priest  were  no  longer  needed,  and  their  achievements 
were  unimportant,  and  they  fell  back  to  secondary 
places  in  the  organization  of  civilization  and  took  in- 
ferior rewards.  In  the  transition  state  between  the 
days  of  the  power  of  the  soldier  and  the  priest  on  the 
one  hand,  and  on  the  other  hand  our  modern  days  of 
republicanism,  there  was  a  time  when  the  king  and  the 
baron  and  the  feudal  servants  held  the  social  organism 
together.  Then  the  achievements  of  the  lord  and 
overlord  were  important,  and  they  had  their  rewards 
according  to  their  talents.  But  the  social  organism 
changed.     The  time  came  in  the  last  century  when 


A   LOOK  AHEAD  241 

the  man  who  could  handle  wisely  the  surplus  earnings 
of  the  people,  invested  against  a  rainy  day,  was  the 
most  important  man  in  the  state.  So  the  capitalist's 
social  service  was  deemed  the  greatest  achievement, 
and  he  took  the  place  in  public  esteem  and  favor,  and 
consequently  in  power,  of  the  soldier  who  gave  way 
to  the  priest,  and  of  the  priest  who  stepped  aside  for 
the  overlord. 

Now  democracy  in  America  is  catechizing  the  capi- 
talist. We  are  asking  him  to  define  his  uses.  We 
are  demanding  that  he  show  cause  why  he  should 
not  follow  the  soldier,  the  priest,  and  the  baron.  That 
is  what  all  this  commotion  in  our  politics  is  about. 
Over  and  over  we  hear  this  dialogue:  "Where  did 
you  get  it?"  asks  old  Demos,  rubbing  his  eyes.  "I 
earned  it,"  replies  Crcesus.  "How?"  "I  built  a 
railroad."  "But,"  insists  Demos,  "the  railroad  cost 
you  only  twenty  million  and  you  took  sixty  mil- 
lion." "Promoter's  profits,"  replies  Crcesus,  begin- 
ning to  move  on.  "Stop  thief,"  cries  old  Demos,  and 
hales  his  friend  into  court.  Or  sometimes  the  dis- 
pute occurs  over  the  rate  charged  for  a  given  service. 
"This  is  my  business,  I  have  a  right  to  its  profits," 
declares  Crcesus.  "I  am  your  partner,"  retorts 
Demos;  "but  for  me  you  would  have  no  patronage. 
Let's  see  the  books."     And  they  look  at  the  books, 


242  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

and  down  come  the  rates,  and  old  Demos  chuckles. 
Or  if  there  is  further  hitch  in  the  matter,  he  says, 
"  Come  now  —  down  with  the  rate,  or  I'll  go  into  busi- 
ness myself."  "  Who  are1  you  that  you  should  do  this 
un-American  thing —  invade  the  domain  of  private 
ownership?"  "I,"  replies  old  Demos,  "I  am  a  man." 
"A  mere  man,"  replies  Croesus,  "and  this  is  a  great 
mystery  —  this  business."  "All  right,"  says  the  cate- 
chizer,  "but  I  am  the  man  who  found  that  the  mys- 
tery of  soldiering  was  common  courage;  that  the 
imponderable  mystery  of  the  Bible  which  I  took  from 
the  priest  and  opened  was  common  sense,  and  the 
inscrutable  mystery  of  government  that  I  took  from 
the  overlord  was  common  honesty.  Behold,  I  am 
ready  for  another  mystery!  Come  now  —  down  with 
rates,  get  your  profits  down  to  six  per  cent,  or  I  shall 
borrow  money  from  the  same  widows  and  orphans 
that  supply  you  at  three  per  cent,  and  go  into  this  busi- 
ness myself."  "But  the  widows  and  orphans  whose 
earnings  I  have  taken?"  whines  Croesus.  "They 
are  my  friends;  they  will  take  my  notes,"  replies 
Demos,  "and  advertises  for  bids  for  the  municipal 
plant. 

But  when  Demos  finds  the  man  who  has  invented 
something,  whether  a  business  system,  a  telephone, 
a  combination  of  effective  men,  or  a  religion,  there 


A  LOOK  AHEAD  243 

Demos  stops.  There  society  is  willing  to  lavish  its 
rewards.  That  is  achievement.  All  democracy  de- 
mands is  value  received.  If  the  capitalist  can  show 
that,  he  may  have  his  millions  and  welcome  to  the 
care  they  bring  him  —  or  the  joy,  if  he  is  wise.  In 
this  new  definition  of  achievement  which  democracy 
is  making  for  the  capitalist,  the  first  requirement  is 
that  achievement  shall  return  to  society  value  for  the 
money  he  gets;  next  that  the  money  shall  be  taken 
honestly.  And  now  by  inheritance  tax  laws  in 
thirty-seven  American  states  democracy  is  demand- 
ing that  rewards  for  achievement  shall  not  descend 
unto  the  third  and  the  fourth  generation. 

It  is  difficult  to  say  just  what  democracy's  defini- 
tion of  achievement  for  capital  will  be  ultimately. 
But  it  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  the  tendency  of  the 
definition  to-day  is  toward  limiting  the  legitimately 
rewardable  achievement  of  the  capitalist  to  the  ac- 
cumulation and  investment  of  the  actual  surplus 
earnings  of  the  people  with  a  small  profit  for  handling 
these  funds.  Obviously  the  funds  are  his  in  trust. 
He  has  earned  no  large  part  of  them.  He  is  acting 
for  the  men  and  women  whose  thrift  has  produced 
the  capital.  If  he  invents  business  systems  and  com- 
binations that  have  economic  value,  —  that  save 
money  for  the  people  and  earn  large  returns  honestly, 


244      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

—  his  reward  shall  be  the  inventor's  rather  than  the 
\  capitalist's.  But  the  day  of  the  rule  of  the  captain 
of  industry  is  rapidly  passing  in  America.  In  all 
the  world  there  is  not  a  soldier  ruler  of  any  importance. 
The  day  of  the  temporal  power  of  the  pope  and  the 
cardinal  has  gone.  The  king  or  overlord  in  civiliza- 
tion to-day  is  but  a  figurehead.  And  to-morrow  the 
capitalist  who  now  dominates  civilization  will  take 
his  place  beside  the  soldier,  the  priest,  and  the  states- 
man —  each  needed,  none  absolute.  For  democracy 
will  have  many  servants,  but  no  masters.  The 
democratic  mind  of  all  the  civilized  world  seems  to 
be  coming  to  the  conclusion  —  by  leaps  and  bounds 
in  Europe,  and  slowly  in  America  —  that  much  of 
the  pretended  achievement  of  capital  is  empirical. 
In  thousands  of  instances  the  people  have  seen  pro- 
moters and  operators  taking  great  rewards  from  the 
public,  and  giving  back  slight  value  to  society.  So 
little  by  little  the  people  have  lost  their  faith  in  the 
divine  right  of  capital  to  rule.  They  have  seen  the 
sham  of  it,  and  letter  upon  letter,  word  upon  word,  they 
have  read  the  dishonesty  of  these  shoddy  transactions. 
Clamor  is  ceasing.  But  there  is  a  deepening  con- 
viction in  the  American  mind  that  capital  shall  not 
be  a  law  unto  itself.  Thus  we  find  in  many  of  our 
great  cities,  in  certain  of  the  states,  and  in  the  nation 


A  LOOK  AHEAD  245 

definite  legal  restrictions  upon  the  issue  of  stocks  and 
bonds,  upon  the  rates  of  public  service  corporations, 
upon  the  character  of  the  service  required  from  public 
service  corporations;  prohibitions  of  many  activities 
in  which  great  aggregations  of  capital  are  invested, 
and  special  taxes  upon  capital  for  the  mere  privilege 
of  doing  business.  These  restrictions,  prohibitions, 
and  special  taxes  are  new  things  in  our  politics.  Ten 
years  ago  one  heard  them  referred  to  as  un-American, 
just  as  the  old  Tories  of  England  used  to  denounce 
any  interference  with  the  king's  prerogatives  as 
'treason."  But  kings  and  capital  are  no  longer 
sacred.  The  once  un-American  limitations  of  the 
activities  of  capital  are  increasing  steadily.  As 
money  leaves  politics  by  special  invitation  of  democ- 
racy, the  rights  of  property  are  growing  narrower  and 
narrower;  the  rights  of  men,  broader  and  broader. 
Achievements  of  men  with  capital  are  defining  them- 
selves more  and  more  closely  into  the  sphere  of  rigid 
honesty;  not  a  new-fashioned  legal  honesty,  but 
an  old-fashioned  Mosaic  honesty.  Morals  have  not 
changed,  but  light  is  turning  upon  certain  shady 
transactions,  and  democracy  understands  them.  It 
is  applying  to  them  not  so  much  a  quickened,  as  an 
enlightened,  conscience.  It  is  not  so  much  a  moral 
awakening  that  we  have  had,  as  a  moral  enlighten- 


248      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANQETH 

ment.  The  schools  have  taught  the  people,  the 
people  have  revived  the  politicians,  and  they  have 
remade  the  law.  But  so  far  as  the  changes  in  our 
national  life  have  been  political,  they  do  not  seem 
to  be  manifest  so  deeply  in  laws  recasting  our  moral 
and  economic  relations,  as  they  are  manifest  in  laws 
broadening  the  scope  of  the  individual's  participa- 
tion in  the  city,  the  state,  and  the  national  govern- 
ments. 

Democracy  is  arming  itself  with  the  full  power  of 
the  ballot.  It  is  vastly  more  important  that  it  shall 
have  weapons  and  equipment  for  the  fight  than  that 
it  shall  have  a  programme.  The  laws  enacted  during 
the  past  ten  years  restricting  capital  are  unimportant. 
The  prohibitions  upon  capital  are  unimportant  — 
though  they  are  widespread.  And  the  taxation  of 
capital  is  of  little  permanent  significance  —  though 
the  tendency  to  tax  capital  is  growing.  The  im- 
portant thing,  the  permanent  thing,  manifest  in  our 
growth  as  a  people  is  the  growth  of  democratic  in- 
institutions  —  the  broadening  and  deepening  of  the 
power  of  the  people  as  shown  by  the  adoption  of 
the  secret  ballot,  the  purification  of  the  party  system, 
the  spread  of  the  direct  primary,  and  the  popular 
acceptance  of  the  initiative  and  referendum  and 
the  recall.     The  deepening  power  of  the  people 


A  LOOK  AHEAD  247 

means  that  the  people  are  preparing  by  some  sub- 
conscious prescience  for  a  great  struggle.  They  do 
not  know  de^nitelywhat  it  IHT  In  the  nature  of 
things  they  may  have  no  programme.  A  cut  and 
dried  platform,  a  formal  declaration  of  principles,  an 
economic  or  a  social  scheme  would  limit  the  scope  of 
the  movement  and  curtail  its  usefulness.  Democ- 
racy of  the  twentieth  century  may  have  no  prophet 
now  —  no  leader  now.  It  must  grow.  Coming 
events  must  be  met,  not  by  a  party  or  a  set  of  prin- 
ciples, but  by  an  attitude  of  mind.  The  reaction 
must  be  simple,  but  inevitable.  In  the  socialization 
of  steam  which  shall  equalize  the  forces  of  capital 
and  democracy  of  only  this  we  may  be  certain:  that 
in  its  outward  form  our  social,  economic,  and  polit- 
ical organization  shall  change;  but  that  human 
nature,  which  is  essentially  kind  and  also  essentially 
selfish,  shall  remain  the  same.  But  we  may  hope  at 
least  that  the  essential  selfishness  of  men  may  be 
tempered  by  the  coming  change  into  some  form  of 
selfishness  wherein  kindness  may  extend  the  selfish- 
ness of  the  man  from  his  family  or  his  clan,  or  even 
from  his  city  or  his  state,  to  a  larger  group,  so  that 
he  may  be  greedy  for  the  common  good. 

For  it   is   indisputable  that  we  are  acquiring  a 
national  public  sentiment.     Our  public  men  in  office 


248  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

and  out  of  office  are  giving  a  national  expression  to  our 
common  aspirations.  This  national  public  sentiment 
is  not  the  belief  of  our  rich  men,  nor  of  our  slums.  It  is 
not  the  trained  judgment  of  the  intellectually  fittest, 
neither  is  it  the  bias  of  the  uninformed.  It  is  calm 
crowd  judgment,  amalgamated  in  the  heat  of  discus- 
sion, but  cooled  in  sober  second  thought.  It  holds 
about  so  much  selfishness  as  imbues  the  average  man, 
and  it  goes  only  so  far  toward  reform  as  the  average 
man  is  willing  to  go  toward  self-reform.  But  the 
important  thing  about  it,  the  net  result  of  agitation 
in  America  for  ten  years,  is  the  nationalization  of  the 
opinion  of  the  average  man.  He  now  finds  himself 
thinking,  not  merely  in  "cities,  not  merely  in  states, 
but  as  an  American.  The  great  achievement  of  the 
past  ten  years  is  the  exaltation  of  the  individual  by 
putting  him  in  accord,  not  with  the  opinion  of  the 
leaders  of  business,  of  politics,  of  the  college  world, 
but  the  opinion  of  his  kind,  a  coordinated,  definitely 
formed  characteristic  American  conviction  of  the 
meaning  of  life. 

But  the  rise  of  the  people  is  manifest  otherwise 
than  in  politics.  A  certain  amount  of  the  complaint 
against  the  increased  cost  of  living  may  be  satisfied 
when  one  considers  the  increased  standard  of  living. 
Men  are  no  longer  willing  to  eat  and  wear  and  read 


A  LOOK  AHEAD  249 

and  believe  and  enjoy  and  endure  what  they  did  twenty 
or  even  ten  years  ago.  Eliminating  from  consideration 
for  a  moment  the  submerged  tenth,  and  taking  the 
average  man  who  lives  on  $75  a  month,  and  one  finds 
that  the  average  man's  taste  is  for  much  better  things 
in  food  and  clothes  and  houses  and  books  and  pleas- 
ures and  comforts  than  it  was  twenty  years  ago. 
Millions  of  men  are  living  on  a  scale  now  that  was 
possible  only  to  a  few  thousands  before  the  Civil  War. 
Modern  plumbing,  telephones,  gas  for  cooking,  and 
electric  lights  are  no  longer  luxuries  for  the  American 
masses  —  these  things  are  comforts.  They  are  re- 
quired, not  dreamed  of.  We  are  paying  more  for  our 
meat  than  we  ever  paid  before  in  a  time  of  peace. 
Doubtless  a  few  pennies  on  the  pound  are  being 
stolen  by  the  packers'  trust;  but  we  are  paying  the 
farmer  more  for  the  meat  on  the  hoof  —  more  in 
clothes  and  food  and  houses  and  books  and  creature 
comforts  than  any  other  farmer  on  earth  ever  re- 
ceived. We  are  paying  more  for  our  cotton  than  we 
have  paid  for  fifty  years.  But  we  are  paying  the  cot- 
ton spinner  —  not  so  well  as  we  should  to  be  sure  — 
more  in  housing,  food,  clothing,  and  education 
for  his  children  than  any  other  cotton  spinner  ever 
received.  We  are  paying  more  for  our  gold  than 
ever  we  paid  before;    but   much  of  the  increased 


250  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

price  goes  to  the  gold  miner  in  better  food,  better 
cabins,  better  tools,  and  shorter  hours  than  we  gave 
to  the  men  in  the  mines  of  '49.  We  are  paying  more 
for  our  houses  than  we  paid  for  our  houses  twenty- 
years  ago ;  but  they  are  better  houses,  and  men  in  the 
building  trades  and  the  workers  in  the  lumber  camps 
and  mines  and  forges  receive  a  share  of  the  increased 
price  for  our  houses  in  increased  comforts.  Steam 
enters  into  all  this;  steam  lightens  the  burdens  of 
workmen.  Steam  shortens  working  hours;  steam 
has  converted  the  luxuries  of  our  fathers  into  the 
comforts  we  demand.  Steam  has  broadened  our  lives, 
bringing  us  books  and  newspapers  and  music  and 
thousands  of  beautiful  things.  Steam  has  given 
us  electricity  and  has  made  the  nation  a  neighbor- 
hood. It  has  organized  the  public  mind,  making 
democracy  articulate.  In  all  these  matters  of  better 
living,  of  more  complete  understanding,  of  higher 
aspiration,  has  steam  been  socialized.  Only  as  steam 
manifests  itself  in  great  aggregations  of  capital  that 
assume  to  dwell  apart  in  a  unique  moral  atmosphere, 
like  kings  and  priests  and  warrior  gods  of  old,  is  steam 
unsocialized.  But  even  capital  is  passing  rapidly 
under  popular  control.  Another  generation  will  see 
the  worst  of  the  struggle  for  the  control  of  capital 
well  finished;  not  that  the  millennium  will  come  then 


A  LOOK  AHEAD  251 

—  not  at  all.  As  life  widens,  it  finds  new  obstacles. 
Growth  is  struggle.  "God  fulfills  himself  in  many 
ways."  It  is  a  dream  to  believe  that  greed  may  be 
abolished.  In  all  the  centuries  lust  has  not  been  abol- 
ished, nor  anger,  nor  hate,  nor  envy.  Yet  they  are 
in  chains.  It  is  not  visionary  to  assume  if  we  go  for- 
ward during  this  century  as  rapidly  toward  the  social- 
ization of  steam  as  we  went  during  the  last  century, 
that  we  may  put  the  man  who  issues  what  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court  has  seen  fit  to  call  "  fictitious 
capital, "  or  the  man  who  floats  bonds  not  based  on 
actual  valuation  of  property,  on  a  footing  with  the 
man  who  violates  a  home  or  assaults  a  woman.  We 
may  put  the  man  who  manufactures  impure  food  and 
poisonous  drinks  in  the  same  category  with  the  fence 
and  the  gambler.  We  may  give  the  trust  magnate 
who  refuses  to  share  exorbitant  profits  with  his  em- 
ployes and  his  customers  a  social  status  with  the 
burglar.  We  may  fetter  greed,  as  we  have  fettered 
our  other  human  vices.  And  it  will  be  done,  as  all  our 
advancement  in  this  life  has  been  made,  not  by 
making  laws,  but  by  creating  broader  fives  than  our 
fathers  knew. 

And  what  a  magnificent  breeding  place  we  have, 
here  on  this  continent!  The  three  fates,  variation, 
segregation,    and    selection,  may   weave   from   our 


252  THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

social  threads  such  cloth  as  the  world  has  never  seen. 
The  best  blood  of  the  earth  is  here  —  a  variated 
blood  of  strong  indomitable  men  and  women  brought 
here  by  visions  of  wider  lives.  But  this  blood  will 
remain  a  clean  Aryan  blood,  because  there  are  no 
hordes  of  inferior  races  about  us  to  sweep  over  us  and 
debase  our  stock.  We  are  segregated  by  two  oceans 
from  the  inferior  races,  and  by  that  instinctive  race 
revulsion  to  cross-breeding  that  marks  the  American 
wherever  he  is  found.  Our  social  laws  permit  the 
best  to  choose  the  best;  our  customs,  our  traditions, 
our  ideals,  all  inspire  youth  to  trust  their  human 
instincts,  to  select  their  mates,  the  fairest  with  the 
fairest,  with  little  thought  of  caste  or  class,  or  of  aught 
but  good  mating.  Our  aristocracy  is  not  of  wealth  or 
of  station;  our  leaders  are  the  clean-bred  children 
of  a  natural  selection  unknown  before  in  human 
history.  Our  children  grow  up  with  the  feeling  of 
community  strongly  upon  them.  The  "we"  feeling 
is  pressed  upon  them  in  the  common  schools,  in  the 
common  playgrounds  and  in  homes,  linked  to  hu- 
manity as  no  other  homes  have  ever  been  joined. 
The  electric  wire,  the  iron  pipe,  the  street  railroad, 
the  daily  newspaper,  the  telephone,  the  lines  of 
transcontinental  traffic  by  rail  and  water,  intimate 
relations  with  the  city,  the  state,  and  the  federal  gov- 


A  LOOK  AHEAD  253 

ernment  have  made  us  all  of  one  body  —  socially, 
industrially,  politically.  Under  our  quickened  demo- 
cratic institutions  the  common  man  has  an  equal 
vote  with  his  uncommon  neighbor.  The  demo- 
cratic environment  fairly  burns  the  spirit  of  human 
brotherhood  upon  the  growing  child.  The  world  is 
near  him.  There  are  no  outlanders.  It  is  possible 
for  all  men  to  understand  one  another;  thus  hatreds 
are  minimized,  and  charity  stimulated.  Thus  in  a 
clean  home,  with  wholesome  food,  in  decent  clothes, 
the  average  well-bred  child  enters  the  environment 
of  our  democracy.  Wars  do  not  mow  down  the  first- 
born and  degrade  the  breed.  Competition  gives  his 
sinews  all  the  strain  they  will  stand.  This  child  of 
the  new  century  may  be  trusted  to  see  visions — ■ 
and  to  follow  them.  We  of  this  generation  have 
done  somewhat  to  solve  the  problems  that  steam  has 
brought  to  us.  And  we  are  by  no  means  done 
with  our  day's  work.  Indeed  it  is  but  dawn  in  the 
new  day  of  spiritual  awakening.  Let  us  touch  those 
who  still  sleeping  wear  the  joy  of  youth  upon  their 
faces  and  say,  with  the  prophet  of  old :  — 

"Arise,  shine;   for  thy  light  is  come,  and  the  glory  of 
the  Lord  is  risen  upon  thee." 


254      THE  OLD  ORDER  CHANGETH 

In  the  "Massachusetts  Railroad  and  Railway  Laws  of 
of  1908"  we  read:  — 

The  provisions  of  this  act  shall  not  impair  the  rights  of 
the  commonwealth,  as  asserted  or  reserved  in  previous 
statutes ;  and  the  commonwealth  may  at  any  time  during 
the  continuance  of  the  charter  of  a  railroad  corporation, 
after  the  expiration  of  twenty  years  from  the  opening  of 
its  railroad  for  use,  purchase  of  the  corporation,  its  rail- 
road and  all  its  franchise,  property,  rights  and  privileges, 
by  paying  therefor  such  amount  as  will  reimburse  to  it  the 
amount  of  capital  paid  in,  with  a  net  profit  thereon  of  ten 
per  cent,  a  year,  from  the  time  of  the  payment  thereof  by 
the  stockholders,  to  the  time  of  the  purchase. 

(Section  7)  The  commonwealth  may  at  any  time  after 
one  year's  notice,  in  writing  to  a  railroad  corporation,  take 
and  possess  its  railroad  franchise  and  other  property  and 
shall  pay  therefor  such  compensation  as  may  be  awarded 
by  three  commissioners,  who  shall  be  appointed  by  the  su- 
preme judicial  court  who  shall  be  sworn  to  appraise  the 
same  justly  and  fairly,  and  who  shall  estimate  and  deter- 
mine all  damages  sustained  by  it  by  such  taking.  A  cor- 
poration which  is  aggrieved  by  their  determination,  may 
have  its  damages  assessed  by  a  jury  in  the  superior  court 
for  the  county  of  Suffolk,  in  the  manner  provided  in 
section  90,  chapter  48,  of  the  revised  laws. 


FEDERAL  JUDGES  APPOINTED  FROM    1901   TO   1909, 

WITH  THOSE  WHO   INDORSED   THEM   AND 

SECURED  THEIR  APPOINTMENTS 

Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States 

Oliver    Wendell    Holmes,    Massachusetts,    Dec.    4,    1902.     No 

papers. 
William  R.  Day,  Ohio,  Feb.  25,  1903.     No  papers. 
William  H.  Moody,  Massachusetts,  Dec.  17,  1906.     No  papers. 

United  States  Circuit  Judges 

Francis  C.  Lowell,  First  Circuit,  Boston,  Mass.,  Feb.  23,  1905. 

Appt.  recommended  by  Senators  Lodge  and  Crane. 
Alfred  C.  Coxe,  Second  Circuit,  Utica,  N.Y.,  June  3,  1902.     Appt. 

recommended  by  Edmund  Wetmore. 
Henry  G.  Ward,  Second  Circuit,  New  York  City,  Dec.  17,  1907. 

Appt.  recommended  by  Senators  Piatt  and  Depew ;  Judges 

Coxe,  Townsend,  and  Lacombe. 
Walter  C.  Nojres,  Second  Circuit,  New  London,  Conn.,  Dec.  18, 

1907.     Appt.  recommended  by  Senators  Brandegee,  Bulke- 

ley,  and   Knox;  Representatives  Lilley  and  Russel,  and 

Governor  Woodruff. 
Joseph   Buffington,   Third    Circuit,    Pittsburg,   Dec.    11,    1906. 

Appt.   recommended   by   all   members   of   Congress   from 

Pennsylvania  except  Palmer  and  Deemer;   papers  referred 

by  Senator  Penrose;    recommended  by  State  Judges  and 

Andrew  Carnegie. 
Peter  C.  Pritchard,  Fourth  Circuit,  Asheville,  N.C.,  April  27, 

1904.     Thirty- three  senators. 
255 


256  APPENDIX 

John  K.  Richards,  Sixth  Circuit,  Cincinnati,  Feb.  25,  1903.     No 

papers. 
Francis  E.  Baker,  Seventh  Circuit,  Indianapolis,  Jan.  21,  1902. 

Attorneys  and  bar  associations,  etc. ;  papers  filed  by  Senator 

Fairbanks. 
William  H.  Seaman,  Seventh  Circuit,  Sheboygan,  Wis.,  Mar.  1, 

1905.     Appt.    recommended    by    Senators    Spooner     and 

Quarles,  and  Judge  Grosscup. 
Christian  C.  Kohlsaat,  Seventh  Circuit,  Chicago,  111.,  Mar.  18, 

1905.     Appt.  recommended  by  H.  M.  Snapp,  M.  C,  Atty. 

General  Moody,  C.  H.  Robb,  Asst.  Atty.  General,  and  various 

attorneys  of  Chicago. 
Willis  Van  Devanter,  Eighth  Circuit,  Cheyenne,  Wyo.,  Feb.  18, 

1903.     No  papers. 
William  C.  Hook,  Eighth  Circuit,  Leavenworth,  Kan.,  Nov.  17, 

1903.     Senator  Long,  Senator   McCumber,  Senator  Stone; 

Representatives   Curtis,   Campbell,   Reeder,   Miller,   Scott, 

Calderhead,   Bowersock,   Marshall,  and   Spalding. 
Elmer    B.  Adams,  Eighth    Circuit,  St.  Louis,  Dec.  12,   1905. 

Appt.  recommended    by    Judges  Van  Devanter,  Rodges, 

Phillips,  Trieber,  Marshall,  Riner,  Sanborn,  and  Amidon. 

United  States  District  Judges 

Alabama,  Northern.  Oscar  R.  Hundley,  Birmingham,  May  30, 
1908.  Judge  Hundley's  indorsements  at  the  Senate.  Indorse- 
ments filed  at  Dept.  of  Justice,  since  sending  papers  to 
Senate,  from  Jos.  O.  Thompson,  Collector  of  Internal  Rev- 
enue, Birmingham.,  Ala. ;  J.  E.  Shelby,  President  Birming- 
ham Board  of  Trade;  Jno.  O.  Turner,  President  Ashville 
College,  Ashville,  Ala. 

Alabama,  Middle  and  Northern.  Thos.  Goode  Jones,  Mont- 
gomery, Dec.   17,   1901.     Judge  Jones  indorsed  by  State 


APPENDIX  257 

Circuit  Judges  Richardson  and  Haralson ;  J.  W.  Dimmick, 
Nat.  Committeeman;   Stewart  L.  Woodford,  New  York. 

California,  Northern.  Wm.  C.  Van  Fleet,  San  Francisco,  Dec. 
17,  1907.  Judge  Van  Fleet  indorsed  by  Senators  Perkins 
and  Flint,  Cal.,  W.  H.  Beatty,  Chief  Justice,  Sup.  Court, 
Cal.;  and  Wm.  W.  Morrow,  U.  S.  Circuit  Judge,  S.  F. 

Colorado.  Robert  E.  Lewis,  Denver.  Apr.  10,  1906.  Judge 
Lewis  recommended  by  Wm.  Lennox,  of  Colorado  Springs, 
letters  transmitted  by  Senator  N.  B.  Scott,  with  favorable 
recommendation;  Chas.  Nagel,  lawyer,  St.  Louis;  D.  B. 
Fairley,  Chairman  Repub.  State  Cent.  Com.,  Denver,  Colo. 

Connecticut.  James  P.  Piatt,  Hartford,  Mar.  23,  1902.  Judge 
Piatt  recommended  by  Wm.  K.  Townsend,  U.  S.  Judge, 
Conn. ;  C.  A.  Russell,  M.  C. ;  Prof.  Wayland,  Dean  of 
Faculty,  Yale  Law  School. 

Florida,  Northern.  Wm.  B.  Sheppard,  Pensacola,  May  20, 1908. 
Judge  Sheppard  recommended  by  Hon.  J.  B.  Whitfield,  of 
Supreme  Court  of  Florida ;  Hon.  C.  W.  Russell,  Asst.  Atty. 
General,  and  others. 

Idaho.  Frank  S.  Dietrich,  Boise,  Dec.  17, 1907.  Judge  Dietrich 
indorsed  as  to  qualifications  by  Senator  Heyburn;  recom- 
mended by  Jno.  S.  Bagley,  ex- Atty.  General  of  Idaho,  and 
many  state  officials,  judges,  etc.,  and  numerous  lawyers, 
ministers,  etc. 

Illinois,  Northern.  Kenesaw  M.  Landis,  Chicago,  Mar.  18, 1905. 
Judge  Landis  indorsed  by  Hon.  F.  E.  Baker,  U.  S.  Circuit 
Judge;  A.  B.  Anderson,  U.  S.  Dist.  Judge,  Indiana;  ten 
state  judges,  111.,  and  other  Chicago  officials  and  attorneys. 

Illinois,  Eastern.  Francis  M.  Wright,  Urbana,  Mar.  17,  1905. 
Note :  Judge  Wright  was  appointed  Judge  Court  of  Claims, 
D.  C,  on  Jan.  13, 1903,  on  recommendation  of  Senator  Hop- 
kins and  Speaker  Cannon.  His  appointment  as  Judge  in 
111.,  Eastern,  was  made  on  account  of  same  recommendations. 


258  APPENDIX 

Indiana.  Albert  B.  Anderson,  Indianapolis,  Dec.  8, 1902.  Judge 
Anderson  recommended  by  E.  D.  Crumpacker,  M.  C. ;  Jas. 
H.  Jordan,  Judge  Sup.  Court,  Indiana,  and  eight  other  state 
judges;   H.  C.  Pettit,  U.  S.  Marshal. 

Iowa,  Northern.  Henry  Thos.  Reed,  Crasco,  Mar.  7,  1904. 
Judge  Reed  recommended  by  Hon.  W.  B.  Allison  and  Hon. 
J.  P.  Dolliver,  and  five  members  of  Congress. 

Kansas.  John  C.  Pollock,  Topeka,  Dec.  1,  1903.  Judge  Pollock 
indorsed  by  state  judges,  senators,  and  attorneys  (papers 
filed  by  Senator  Long,  of  Kansas;  D.  T.  Flynn,  ex-Del. 
from  Okla. ;  Gov.  Ferguson,  of  Okla.,  S.  R.  Peters,  ex-M.  C. 

Kentucky,  Eastern.  A.  M.  J.  Cochran,  Maysville,  Dec.  17,  1901. 
Papers  filed  by  Senator  Lindsay ;  indorsed  by  state  judges, 
senators,   bar  associations,   etc. 

Lousiana,  Eastern.  Eugene  D.  Saunders,  New  Orleans,  Feb.  20, 
1907.  Indorsed  by  Chief  Justice  and  Associate  Justices 
Supreme  Court,  La.,  Senator  McEnery,  President  Tulane 
University. 

Maine.  Clarence  Hale,  Portland,  July  1,  1902.  Indorsed  by 
Senators  Hale  and  Frye,  and  Representatives  Allen,  Little- 
field,  and  Powers. 

Massachusetts.  Frederic  Dodge,  Boston,  Feb.  23,  1905.  Appt. 
recommended  by  Senators  Lodge  and  Crane,  Massachusetts. 

Michigan,  Western.  Loyal  E.  Knappen,  Grand  Rapids,  Dec.  10, 
1907.     No  papers. 

Minnesota.  Page  Morris,  Duluth,  July  1,  1903.  Appt.  recom- 
mended by  Senators  Nelson  and  Clapp;  members  of  Con- 
gress, governor,  etc. 

Minnesota.  Milton  D.Purdy,  Minneapolis,  July  6,  1908.  Papers 
at  the  Senate. 

Missouri,  Eastern.  David  P.  Dyer,  St.  Louis,  Apr.  1,  1907. 
Appt.  recommended  by  Senator  Warner ;  Jno.  F.  Phillips, 
U.  S.  Dist.  Judge;  Governor  Folk,  Mo.;  and  various  state 
judges. 


APPENDIX  259 

Montana.     William  H.  Hunt,  Helena,  April  19,  1904.   No  papers. 

Nevada.  Edward  S.  Farrington,  Carson  City,  Jan.  10,  1907, 
Appt.  recommended  by  Senator  Nixon,  Governor  Sparks, 
and  Hon.  W.  M.  Stewart. 

New  Jersey.  Joseph  Cross,  Elizabeth,  Mar.  17,  1905.  Appt. 
recommended  by  Senators  Kean  and  Dryden. 

New  York,  Northern.  George  W.  Ray,  Norwich,  Dec.  8,  1902. 
Appt.  recommended  by  W.  H.  Johnson,  attorney,  and 
Titus  Sheard. 

New  York,  Southern.  George  C.  Holt,  New  York  City,  Mar.  3, 
1903.  Appt.  recommended  by  Hon.  Addison  Brown,  ex- 
U.  S.  Judge;  Jas.  B.  Reynolds,  Coudert  Brothers,  Andrew 
Carnegie,  B.  S.  Coler. 

New  York,  Southern.  Charles  M.  Hough,  New  York  City,  June 
27,  1906.  Appt.  recommended  by  E.  B.  Whitney,  ex-Asst. 
A.  G. ;  George  W.  Wickersham,  and  numerous  other  mem- 
bers of  New  York  City  bar;  Wm.  G.  Choate,  Henry  W. 
Taft,  H.  G.  Ward. 

New  York,  Eastern.    Thos.  Ives  Chatfield,  Brooklyn,  Jan.  9, 

1907.  Appt.  recommended  by  U.  S.  Atty.  Vreeland,  N.  J. ; 
Editor  Brooklyn  Daily  Times;  A.  J.  Rose,  attorney;  also 
re-filed  letters  from  Senator  Piatt,  Hon.  E.  B.  Thomas,  and 
others,  originally  filed  for  appt.  as  judge,  Southern  New 
York. 

Ohio,  Northern.  Robert  W.  Taylor,  Cleveland,  Feb.  1,  1905. 
Appt.  recommended  by  Jas.  Kennedy,  M.  C;  J.  J.  Sullivan, 
U.  S.  Atty. ;   Myron  T.  Herrick,  and  Josiah  Strong. 

Ohio,  Southern.  John  E.  Sater,  Columbus,  May  30,  1906. 
Papers  at  the  Senate. 

Oklahoma,  Eastern.     Ralph  E.  Campbell,  McAlester,  Jan.  13, 

1908.  Appt.  recommended  by  Gov.  Frantz,  Okla. ;  State 
Chairman  Hunter:  O.  A.  Wells,  Sec'y  State  Cent.  Com.; 
also  many  lawyers  and  territorial  officials. 


260  APPENDIX 

Oklahoma,  Western.  John  H.  Cotteral,  Guthrie,  Jan.  13,  1908. 
No  papers. 

Oregon.  Charles  E.  Wolverton,  Portland,  Jan.  10.  1905.  Appt. 
recommended  by  Hon.  Wm.  B.  Gilbert,  U.  S.  Circuit  Judge, 
Portland ;  Hon.  Wm.  W.  Morrow,  U.  S.  Circuit  Judge,  San 
Francisco ;  Francis  J.  Heney,  lawyer,  San  Francisco. 

Pennsylvania,  Eastern.  James  B.  Holland,  Philadelphia,  Apr.  19, 
1904.  Appt.  recommended  by  Senators  Quay  and  Penrose, 
nine  members  of  Congress,  and  Gov.  Pennypacker. 

Pennsylvania,  Middle.  Robert  W.  Archbald,  Scranton,  Dec.  17, 
1901.  Appt.  recommended  by  Senator  Quay,  Represen- 
tatives Demmer,  Grow,  and  Kirkpatrick ;  U.  S.  Judges 
Acheson  and  McPherson ;   and  several  state  judges. 

Pennsylvania,  Western.  James  S.  Young,  Pittsburg,  Feb.  1, 
1908.     Appt.  recommended  by  Senators  Knox  and  Penrose. 

Tennessee,  Eastern  and  Middle.  Edward  T.  Sanford,  Knoxville, 
May  18,  1908.  Appt.  recommended  by  W.  D.  Beard,  Ch. 
Justice,  and  Jno.  K.  Shields,  Asso.  Justice,  Sup.  Court, 
Tenn. ;  C.  H.  Harvey,  President  Knoxville  Railway  &  Light 
Co.,  and  Grim  and  Webb,  lawyers,  Knoxville. 

Tennessee,  Western.  John  E.  McCall,  Memphis,  Jan.  17,  1905. 
Appt.  recommended  by  Representatives  Cannon,  Brown- 
low,  Hemenway,  Gibson,  Richardson,  Pierce,  Jenkins, 
Benton,  and  Bingham ;  U.  S.  Judges  Evans  and  Clark. 
Texas,  Southern.  Waller  T.  Burns,  Houston,  July  1,  1902. 
Papers  filed  by  Senators  Lodge,  Millard,  and  Quay;  the 
latter  speaks  of  "  my  friend  Burns  " ;  Cecil  A.  Lyon,  Chair- 
man Rep.  State  Ex.  Com.,  and  eight  Congressional  Chair- 
men of  Committees. 

Vermont.  James  L.  Martin,  Brattleboro,  Dec.  11,  1906.  Appt. 
recommended  by  Senators  Proctor  and  Dillingham,  and  the 
two  members  of  Congress  from  Vermont. 

Virginia,  Western.    H.  Clay  McDowell,  Lynchburg,  Dec.  18, 1901. 


APPENDIX  261 

Appt.  recommended  by  Rep.  Boreing,  C.  B.  Slemp;   state 

judges  and  senators ;   President  United  States  Civil  Service 

Commission  (Proster) ;   president  and    officers  of  L.  &  N. 

Railway. 
Washington,  Eastern.   Edward  Whitson,  Spokane,  Mar.  14,  1905. 

Appt.  recommended  by  Senators  Ankeny  and  Piles ;  former 

Senator  A.  G.  Foster ;  Representatives  Jones,  Cushman,  and 

Humphrey;   state  judges,  lawyers,  etc. 
West  Virginia,  Northern.     Alston  G.  Dayton,  Philippi,  Mar.  14, 

1905.     No  papers. 
West  Virginia,  Southern.    Benjamin  F.  Keller,  Bramwell,  Dec.  17. 

1901.     Appt.  recommended  by  Senator  Scott,  and  W.  M.  O. 

Dawson,  Sec'y  of  State  and  State  Chairman. 
Wisconsin,  Eastern.    Joseph  V.  Quarles,  Milwaukee,  Mar.  6, 1905. 

Appt.  recommended  by  Senator  Spooner. 
Wisconsin,  Western.     Arthur  L.  Sanborn,  Madison,  Jan.  9,  1905. 

Appt.  recommended  by  Senator  Spooner;   Judges  Harlan, 

Jenkins,  Grosscup,  Baker,  Dyer,  and  Bunn. 

Court  of  Claims 

Stanton  J.  Peelle,  Indiana,  Jan.  1,  1906.  No  papers.  Judge 
Peelle  was  originally  appointed  Judge  Court  of  Claims, 
March  28,  1892. 

Fenton  W.  Booth,  Illinois,  Mar.  17,  1905.  Judge  Booth  recom- 
mended by  Speaker  Cannon,  James  B.  Ricks,  Chief  Justice 
Supreme  Court,  Illinois;  J.  H.  Cartwright  and  J.  W.  Wil- 
kins,  Justice  Supreme  Court,  Illinois. 

George  W.  Atkinson,  West  Virginia,  Jan.  16,  1906.  Judge 
Atkinson  recommended  by  Senator  Scott,  Joseph  H.  Gaines, 
M.  C. ;  Albert  B.  White,  governor  of  West  Virginia ;  Vice- 
President  Fairbanks ;  Senator  Elkins,  and  four  representa- 
tives from  West  Virginia. 

Samuel  S.  Barney,   Wisconsin,   Jan.    1,    1906.     Judge  Barney 


262 


APPENDIX 


recommended  by  Senator  Spooner,  and  eleven  Republican 

Members  of  Congress  from  Wisconsin. 
As  showing  how  little  money  counts  in  American  political 
life,  the  expenses  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Law  Convention, 
from  November,  1900,  until  June,  1906,  is  herewith  appended. 
During  that  time  the  sentiment  was  organized  that  forced  the 
passage  of  the  Hepburn  railroad  law.  The  recapitulated  list 
of  expenses  and  disbursements  follows :  — 

Recapitulation  as  to  Interests 

Agricultural $    992  50 

Grain,  Hay,  and  Commission        .        .  1,135  00 
Boards    of    Trade    and     Commercial 

Bodies 9,475  00 

Flour  Millers 4,425  02 

General  Manufacturers          .        .        .  1,657  00 

Livestock            1,200  00 

Lumber 2,345  00 

Individuals  and  Concerns     .        .         .  1,625  00 


$22,855  02 


Disbursements 

For  Printing $4,216  61 

Stationery 704  66 

Postage 2,906  98 

Telegrams 321  48 

Express 130  37 

Exchange 7  18 

Chairman's  Traveling  Expenses     .  1,487  55 

Chairman's  Clerical  Assistance       .  1,767  44 

Secretary's  Salary           .         .         .  7,112  25 

Secretary's  Traveling  Expenses      .  2,580  90 

Secretary's  Office  Expenses    .         .  259  92 

Secretary's  Clerical  Assistance       .  393  27 
Convention,  Executive  Committee 

and  Incidental  Expenses         .  1,448  37 

Total  Disbursements    .  


$23,336  58 


Deficit 


$48156 


APPENDIX  263 

THE  MUNICIPAL  RECALL 

Below  will  be  found  the  recall  law,  as  it  is  used  in  cities  having 
the  Des  Moines  plan  of  government  by  commission.  About  five 
million  people  now  are  living  in  cities  or  in  a  state  having  the 
power  to  recall  certain  public  officers  under  this  or  similar  acts. 

Sec.  18.  The  holder  of  any  elective  office  may  be  removed  at 
any  time  by  the  electors  qualified  to  vote  for  a  successor  of  such 
incumbent.  The  procedure  to  effect  the  removal  of  an  incum- 
bent of  an  elective  office  shall  be  as  follows :  A  petition  signed 
by  electors  entitled  to  vote  for  a  successor  to  the  incumbent 
sought  to  be  removed,  equal  in  number  to  at  least  twenty-five 
percentum  of  the  entire  vote  for  all  candidates  for  the  office  of 
mayor  at  the  last  preceding  general  municipal  election,  demand- 
ing an  election  of  a  successor  of  the  person  sought  to  be  removed 
shall  be  filed  with  the  city  clerk,  which  petition  shall  contain  a 
general  statement  of  the  grounds  for  which  the  removal  is  sought. 
The  signatures  to  the  petition  need  not  all  be  appended  to  one 
paper,  but  each  signer  shall  add  to  his  signature  his  place  of  resi- 
dence, giving  the  street  and  number.  One  of  the  signers  of  each 
such  papers  shall  make  oath  before  an  officer  competent  to  ad- 
minister oaths  that  the  statements  therein  made  are  true  as  he 
believes,  and  that  each  signature  to  the  paper  appended  is  the 
genuine  signature  of  the  person  whose  name  it  purports  to  be. 
Within  ten  days  from  the  date  of  filing  such  petition  the  city 
clerk  shall  examine  and  from  the  voters'  register  ascertain 
whether  or  not  said  petition  is  signed  by  the  requisite  number 
of  qualified  electors,  and,  if  necessary,  the  council  shall  allow 
him  extra  help  for  that  purpose ;  and  he  shall  attach  to  said 
petition  his  certificate,  showing  the  result  of  said  examination. 
If  by  the  clerk's  certificate  the  petition  is  shown  to  be  insufficient, 
it  may  be  amended  within  ten  days  from  the  date  of  said  certifi- 
cate.   The  clerk  shall,  within  ten  days  after  such  amendment, 


264  APPENDIX 

make  like  examination  of  the  amended  petition,  and  if  his  cer- 
tificate shall  show  the  same  to  be  insufficient,  it  shall  be  returned 
to  the  person  filing  the  same;  without  prejudice,  however,  to 
the  filing  of  a  new  petition  to  the  same  effect.  If  the  petition 
shall  be  deemed  to  be  sufficient,  the  clerk  shall  submit  the  same 
to  the  council  without  delay.  If  the  petition  shall  be  found  to 
be  sufficient,  the  council  shall  order  and  fix  a  date  for  holding  the 
said  election,  not  less  than  thirty  days  or  more  than  forty  days 
from  the  date  of  the  clerk's  certificate  to  the  council  that  a  suffi- 
cient petition  is  filed. 

The  council  shall  make,  or  cause  to  be  made,  publication  of 
notice  and  all  arrangements  for  holding  such  election,  and  the 
same  shall  be  conducted,  returned  and  the  result  thereof  de- 
clared, in  all  respects  as  are  other  city  elections.  The  successor 
of  any  officer  so  removed  shall  hold  office  during  the  unexpired 
term  of  his  predecessor.  Any  person  sought  to  be  removed  may 
be  a  candidate  to  succeed  himself,  and  unless  he  requests  other- 
wise in  writing,  the  clerk  shall  place  his  name  on  the  official 
ballot  without  nomination.  In  any  such  removal  election,  the 
candidate  receiving  the  highest  number  of  votes  shall  be  declared 
elected.  At  such  election  if  some  other  person  than  the  incum- 
bent receives  the  highest  number  of  votes  the  incumbent  shall 
thereupon  be  deemed  removed  from  the  office  upon  qualification 
of  his  successor.  In  case  the  party  who  receives  the  highest 
number  of  votes  should  fail  to  qualify,  within  ten  days  after 
receiving  notification  of  election,  the  office  shall  be  deemed 
vacant.  If  the  incumbent  receives  the  highest  number  of  votes 
he  shall  continue  in  office.  The  same  method  of  removal  shall 
be  cumulative  and  additional  to  the  methods  heretofore  pro- 
vided by  law.  — 

The  following  is  a  copy  of  the  Nebraska  law  —  which  is  prac- 
tically a  copy  of  the  Oregon,  Idaho,  and  Nevada  acts  —  giving 
the  people  a  direct  vote  upon  United  States  senator.     After  the 


APPENDIX  265 

August  primaries  have  nominated  the  senatorial  candidates  of 
the  two  parties,  their  names  are  put  upon  the  ballot,  as  pro- 
vided in  the  following  section :  — 

Sec.  9.  (United  States  senator.)  At  the  general  election 
immediately  preceding  the  expiration  of  the  term  of  a  United 
States  senator  from  this  state,  the  electors  shall,  by  ballot, 
express  their  preference  for  some  person  for  the  office  of  United 
States  senator.  The  votes  to  be  canvassed  and  returned  in  the 
manner  hereinafter  provided. 

Before  the  primary  candidates  for  the  legislature  are  pledged 
to  vote  for  the  people's  choice  in  this  manner :  — 

Sec.  117P  (Same — Legislative  candidates.)  Any  elector 
seeking  nomination  as  a  candidate  for  the  legislature  at  the 
primaries  where  such  candidates  are  chosen  may  include  in  the 
application  to  have  his  name  placed  upon  the  official  primary 
ballot  provided  for  in  Section  5866  (?)  of  Cobbey's  Annotated 
Statutes  for  1907  (117f)  any  one  of  the  two  following  statements, 
but  if  he  does  not  do  so  the  officer  with  whom  the  application  is 
filed  shall  not,  on  that  account,  refuse  to  file  his  petition  or  place 
his  name  on  the  official  ballot:  Statement  No.  1.  I  hereby 
state  to  the  people  of  Nebraska,  as  well  as  to  the  people  of  my 
legislative  district,  that  during  my  term  of  office  I  will  always 
vote  for  that  candidate  for  United  States  senator  in  Congress 
who  has  received  the  highest  number  of  the  people's  votes  for 
that  position  at  the  general  election  next,  preceding  the  election 
of  a  senator  in  Congress,  without  regard  to  my  individual  pref- 
erence      (Signature  of    the  candidate  for   nomination.) 

If  the  candidate  shall  be  unwilling  to  sign  the  above  statement, 
then  he  may  sign  the  following  statement  as  a  part  of  his  peti- 
tion :  Statement  No.  2.  During  my  term  of  office  I  shall  con- 
sider the  vote  of  the  people  for  United  States  senator  in  Congress 
as  nothing  more  than  a  recommendation,  which  I  shall  be  at 


266  APPENDIX 

liberty  to  wholly  disregard,  if  the  reason  for  doing  so  seems  to 
me  to  be  sufficient (Signature  of  the  candidate  for  nomi- 
nation.) 

Sec.  117f2.  (Ballot,  legislative  candidate.)  That  part  of  the 
official  primary  election  ballot  which  contains  the  names  of 
candidates  for  legislative  nominations  shall  have  printed  thereon 
immediately  following  the  names  of  those  candidates  whose 
applications  include  Statement  No.  1,  the  following  words, 
"promises  to  vote  for  people's  choice  for  United  States  senator," 
and  immediately  following  the  name  of  those  candidates  whose 
applications  contain  Statement  No.  2,  the  following  words, 
"will  not  promise  to  vote  for  people's  choice  for  United  States 
senator."  The  form  of  that  part  of  the  ballot  containing  the 
names  for  those  who  are  candidates  for  legislative  nomination 
shall  be  substantially  as  follows :  — 

For  State  Senator  from th  district.  Vote  for . 

Richard  Smith,  promises  to  vote  for  people's  choice  for  United 

States  senator. 
James  Brown,  will  not  promise  to  vote  for  people's  choice  for 

United  States  senator. 
William  Jones. 

For  Representatives  from th  district.  Vote  for 

Wilbur  Abie,  promises  to  vote  for  people's  choice  for  United 

States  senator. 
William  A.  Adams. 
Frank  Alger,  will  not  promise  to  vote  for  people's  choice  for 

United  States  senator. 
Elton  Ankeny. 

It  is  obvious  that  a  candidate  does  not  wish  to  go  before  the 
people  as  refusing  to  abide  by  the  will  of  the  people,  so  both 
candidates  sign  the  pledge  before  the  primary  and  have  to  hold 
to  it  when  they  are  nominated.  The  optional  provision  is 
merely  to  get  around  the  constitution. 


A    CERTAIN    RICH    MAN 

By  WILLIAM  ALLEN  WHITE 
Cloth  i2tno  ti.50 

This  work  may  be  safely  acclaimed  as  an  American  novel  which  takes 
front  rank  among  the  best  fiction  not  only  of  modern  days  but  of  all  times. 
Amid  vivid  pictures  of  the  growth  of  the  great  Middle  West,  William 
Allen  White,  the  distinguished  journalist  and  author  of  numerous  widely 
known  short  stories,  gives  us  the  absorbing  career  of  a  remarkable  money- 
maker and  his  associates.  The  realism  of  it,  the  verisimilitude  of  his  men 
and  women,  the  accuracy  of  his  description  of  the  conditions  that  sur- 
rounded and  moulded  them,  no  experienced  observer  of  American  life  will 
attempt  to  deny.  Unaffected  by  an>  foreign  influence,  writing  in  a  simple 
and  straightforward  fashion  of  matters  of  which  he  is  thoroughly  familiar, 
Mr.  White  has  made  "A  Certain  Rich  Man"  throb  with  the  vital  spirit, 
good  and  bad,  of  America. 


PRESS   COMMENTS 

"A  tale  of  great  power  and  dramatic  force,  and  might  be  called  the 
prose  epic  of  the  great  altruistic  movement  it  prefigures  ;  a  book  that  will 
move  the  thoughtful  and  reflecting  reader  profoundly,  and  when  he  has 
finished  he  will  be  quite  ready  to  admit  that  the  great  fictional  expression 
of  this  mighty  twentieth  century  altruistic  movement  is  sure  to  be  some- 
thing in  kind  and  in  degree  akin  to  Mr.  White's  'A  Certain  Rich  Man.' " 
—  Brooklyn  Daily  Eagle. 

"A  romance  of  singular  power." —  Chicago  Tribune. 

"American  first,  last,  and  always."  —  Richmond  Times- Despatch. 

"  Mr.  White  has  made  the  nearest  approach  yet  to  the  great  American 
novel,  so  long  looked  for."  —  The  Graphic. 


PUBLISHED    BY 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

64-66  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 


Other  Books  by  William  Allen  White 

COURT   OF   BOYVILLE 

Illustrated  Cloth  izmo  $^-S° 

There  are  few  men  in  the  world  who  have  pictured  that  strange  creation, 
the  Boy,  as  he  actually  is.  One  of  these  men  is  Mr.  White.  His  Kansas 
boys  are  a  delight,  and  the  recollections  they  will  awaken  in  the  mind  of 
any  man  will  cause  him  to  congratulate  himself  for  having  read  the  book. 

IN   OUR   TOWN 

Illustrated      Cloth      i2tno      $1.50 

Mr.  White  suggests  Barrie  more  than  any  other  living  writer.  His  new 
book  does  for  the  daily  life  of  a  modern  Kansas  town  just  what  Barrie  has 
done  for  a  Scotch  town  in  "A  Window  in  Thrums." 

"  It  is  '  Boyville '  grown  up  ;  bet;  vc  because  more  skilfully  and  deftly 
done;  riper,  because  'Bill'  is  a  bigger  boy  now  than  he  was  five  years 
ago,  and  more  human.  No  writer  to-day  handles  the  small  town  life  to 
compare  with  White,  and  this  is  the  best  book  he  has  yet  done."  —  Los 
Angeles  Herald. 

STRATAGEMS   AND   SPOILS 

Illustrated  Cloth  ismo  $J-5° 

There  are  hours  and  days  and  long  years  in  the  lives  of  men  and  women 
wherein  strong  passions  are  excited  and  great  human  interests  are  at  stake. 
The  ambition  for  power,  the  greed  for  money,  the  desire  to  win  the  game, 
the  hunger  for  fame,  parental  love,  anger,  friendship,  hate,  and  revenge  — 
the  primitive  passions  that  move  men  and  the  world  powerfully  —  certainly 
these  deserve  as  important  a  place  in  the  chronicles  of  the  human  animal 
as  does  the  mating  instinct.  It  is  with  this  idea  in  mind  that  Mr.  White 
has  set  the  stories  in  this  volume  in  the  field  of  American  politics,  where 
every  human  emotion  finds  free  play. 

THE    REAL    ISSUE 

Cloth  i2mo  $1^5 

"It  pulsates  with  humor,  interest,  passionate  love,  adventures,  pathos  — 
every  page  is  woven  with  threads  of  human  nature,  life  as  we  know  it,  life 
as  it  is,  and  above  it  all  a  spirit  of  righteousness,  true  piety,  and  heroic 
patriotism.  These  inspire  the  author's  genius  and  fine  literary  quality, 
thrilling  the  reader  with  tenderest  emotion,  and  holding  to  the  end  his 
unflagging,  absorbing  interest."  —  The  Public  Ledger,  Philadelphia. 


PUBLISHED    BY 

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64-66  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 


THE   SPIRIT   OF   AMERICA 

By  HENRY  VAN  DYKE 

Professor  of  English  at  Princeton  University ;  Hyde  Lecturer,  University  of 
Paris;  Hon.  L.L.D.,  University  of  Geneva;  Hon.  F.R.S.L.,  London. 

Cloth  i2tno  $J-50 

The  basis  of  this  volume  is  the  addresses  delivered  by  Professor  van 
Dyke  in  Paris  as  the  exchange  professor  sent  by  America  to  the  Sorbonne 
University.  The  author's  wide  experience  with  many  distinct  aspects  of 
our  national  life,  his  great  ability  as  a  thinker  and  writer,  and  his  personal 
sincerity,  all  combine  to  render  Professor  van  Dyke  eminently  fitted  for 
the  important  task  he  has  undertaken  in  this  book.  To  perceive  the  en- 
during and  valuable  elements  in  the  kaleidoscope  of  the  America  of  to-day, 
requires  a  far-seeing  eye,  whose  vision  has  been  trained  by  long  prepara- 
tion. In  this  work  the  fruit  of  years  of  application  and  reflection  is  clearly 
apparent  —  it  is  undoubtedly  the  most  notable  interpretation  in  years  of 
the  real  America. 

Professor  van  Dyke  divides  his  discussion  into  the  following  headings  : 

The  Soul  of  a  People,  Self-reliance  and  the  Republic, 
Fair  Play  and  Democracy,  Will  Power,  Work  and  Wealth, 
Common  Order  and  Social  Cooperation,  Personal  Develop- 
ment and    Education,  and   Self-expression   and  Literature 

Though  his  treatment  is  at  all  times  sympathetic,  he  has  not  hesitated 
to  put  his  finger  upon  the  weak  points  in  our  government,  and  the  work 
will  be  found  quite  as  entertaining,  quite  as  enlightening  to  the  American 
nation  as  it  was  to  the  French,  where  it  won  the  attention  and  admiration 
not  only  of  Professor  van  Dyke's  ..nmediate  audience,  but  of  the  entire 
country. 

THE   UNITED    STATES 
AS    A   WORLD-POWER 

By  ARCHIBALD  CARY  COOLIDGE,  Ph.D. 

Assistant  Professor  of  History  in  Harvard  University 

Cloth  i2tno  $2.00 

Professor  Coolidge's  book  is  based  on  the  lectures  which  he  recently 
delivered  at  the  Sorbonne  in  Paris,  and  which  attracted  wide  attention  in 
Europe.  It  is  a  critical  study  of  the  international  position  of  the  United 
States  to-day.  He  discusses  in  detail,  and  with  many  comparisons,  the 
situation  arising  from  the  formation  and  growth  of  the  United  States,  the 
composition  of  its  White  population,  the  Colored  elements,  the  Monroe 
Doctrine,  the  Spanish  War  and  the  acquisition  of  colonies,  the  economic 
status  of  the  country,  the  relations  of  the  United  States  with  continental 
Europe  and  with  England,  the  relations  with  Canada  and  with  the  coun- 
tries of  Latin  America,  the  presence  of  the  United  States  in  the  Pacific 
and  its  relations  with  China  and  with  Japan. 


PUBLISHED    BY 

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THE   PROMISE  OF 
AMERICAN    LIFE 

By  HERBERT  CROLY 

Goth  Gilt  top  468  pages  $2.00  net 

Mr.  Croly  opens  his  admirable  treatise  with  a  discus- 
sion of  what  the  promise  of  American  life  is,  how  it  has 
been  realized  in  the  past,  and  the  possibilities  of  future 
realization.  Then,  in  order  to  thoroughly  understand 
present-day  problems  he  goes  back  to  the  beginning  of 
things  —  to  the  Federalists,  the  early  Republicans,  the 
Democrats  and  the  Whigs,  and  gradually  and  consist- 
ently working  his  way  up  through  a  discussion  of  slav- 
ery, its  causes,  results,  and  relation  to  the  different 
parties  and  to  American  nationality,  he  comes,  finally, 
to  the  contemporary  situation 

First  of  all,  he  turns  his  attention  to  reform  and 
reformers  and  in  this  connection  presents  excellent 
analyses  of  Bryan,  Hearst,  and  Roosevelt.  Mr.  Croly 
concludes  with  a  detailed  critical  reconstruction  of 
American  political  ideas,  setting  forth  a  sufficient  the- 
ory in  basis,  for  the  programme  of  a  nationalized  de- 
mocracy. 

Altogether  the  work  is  a  profound  study,  deep  in 
thought  and  broad  in  suggestion.  The  immense  value 
of  the  matter  to  thinking  Americans  is  greatly  enhanced 
by  the  brilliancy  of  the  style. 


PUBLISHED    BY 

THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

64-66  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


OCT  8  9  1953 

MAR  1  1  1954 

•   ; 
MAY  1  4  195C 


APR  "  T 

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IUL  1 3  1959 


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